As an African woman there is usually no thinking about the preference you’d want for your child, the default is that you are going to breastfeed and that is what I had decided. My decision was obviously influenced by society I was raised in and not the knowledge I had of the benefits of breastfeeding. It was only after I did a bit of research that I knew the benefits of breastfeeding and after that I was just hooked. I was going to exclusively breastfeed my child for 6 months and nothing was going to stop me from doing so. I did not even think about finding out some of the reasons why some people do not exclusively breastfeed for six months as recommended or even thought of speaking to anyone about their experience and if I needed to prepare myself.– NOPE! had seen so many women do this and it really looked so natural and so straightforward so I thought.
My first day from the hospital
The nurses at the hospital had equipped me with the knowledge I needed (in an ideal world) for me to proceed with my healthy breastfeeding journey. So, I get home with my sleeping baby, and I patiently waited for him to wake up so that I could start being mom without the nurses coming in and out. Baby boy wakes up after hours of sleeping, and I was obviously excited to feed him, so we got down to that. My mom was there to help me take care of a newborn. As she sat there, she sees that my baby is busy sucking, but she could not hear the swallowing. She came and helped me to put the baby in the right position, but still no swallowing happening.
She came closer and asked if she could squeeze my nipples. I was even warned that it was going to be painful and in my mind I thought it was going to be normal pain of being squeezed, but lo and behold the most painful nipple squeeze ever. Then she saw I hardly had any breastmilk coming out. So, she asked me to put the baby down since he was struggling to suck, and then she started expressing the breastmilk from me. It was still painful, but I let her do it so that I could feed the child. After a while she got something and managed to feed the child, but it was still not enough.
She asked me to express myself and, there was still hardly any breastmilk coming out. With a very sad tone, my mom said; if I was okay with getting baby formula so that we could feed the baby while I try to get the milk supply sorted. That is exactly what I did, fed my baby formula on the first week, his third day of life. On the surface I felt that I had made a good decision but deep inside I felt like a failure. The one thing I appreciated was that my mom let me make the decision myself, as if I had any other option. But her letting me make the decision made me realise that my baby is totally dependent on me. I am going to be responsible for life and am the only mother that my child will ever have. Anyway my husband ran to the store to get formula while mom is preparing the bottle and I was still trying to express breastmilk for the baby.
When I husband walked in, he had the biggest tin of formula he could find, Lord did we not laugh. At least he managed to lighten up my mood. So, mom prepared the bottle and fed the baby with a medicine cup. I cried seeing this happen because I had told myself that my child would never have formula, at least not at that age. I really have nothing against the formula at all, but this is the decision I had made for myself and that was that. In life never say never.
How I increased my breastmilk supply
Something had to be done quick because the baby would have to feed again in a few hours. So, mom asked me to drink a lot of fluids. This is mid-winter, and drinking fluids means a lot of bathroom trips. For this baby, I could do anything just for him to have that breastmilk. There I went on to drink. On top of that we prepared the breast pump so that I could use it to stimulate the breast to produce the breastmilk.
I was not in the mood of trying to figure out how the electric pump worked so I went with the manual breast pump. After sitting with the pump for a while I did manage too get some breastmilk out, altough it wasn’t enough I was generally happy seeing that my body is capable to sustain my baby’s needs. It was very amazing to see what the body can do. But yoo! manual breast pump is painful on the hands, but the pain of that pump pulling the nipple in for the first time was baaad!! and it got worse if I stopped in between to give my hand a break. My advice to anyone who has never pumped before, avoid it in the first few weeks before the nipples are still sensitive at this point. If you need to make sure that you have the right size flange size for your breast and nipples.
Anyway, after about 2 and half weeks I saw that had I “enough” milk coming out, I stopped using the formula but continued pumping so that I could make sure that the baby was having enough milk. Day 1 I pumped like a cow, I needed that flow and stimulation, but as time went on I reduced the times for the pump sessions. My first day and the second day of pumping I used a manual breast pump and already understood why the electric pump was invented. When day 3 came, I tested the electric breast pump and that was the relief I needed, after all my breastmilk was now flowing and I could meet my son’s demand.
The new problem
Then the new problem started. My supply was too much, most probably from all the pumping. Now I started having the latching problems. At first my son wasn’t too bad at latching, but that was when I was struggling to feed him enough breastmilk. When the flow stared then the breast was too big for his mouth. One thing I didn’t even know that the nipples have different sizes and that’s the time I knew that mine are bigger than most people’s. This made it even more difficult when my son had to latch. The initial latch would be so painful that my first instinct was to make him stop, but somehow, I stuck through the pain. I even learned about engorgement, who knew that the breast can be as hard as a rock. My breast were heavy, although not painful. A simple massage and I would get the let down in a few seconds. Some days I do miss that easy let down.
How I managed through the cracked nipples
Because my son was not latching properly I started getting cracked nipples. I mostly stuck through the pain because everywhere I read/heard they mentioned that “initial pain”. What I didn’t know was that they didn’t mean the kind of pain I was going through. Now I know that when I feel that razor cut pain it is due to the cracked nipples. My sister still make a joke about how I used to complain about my son biting me. It was just a really rocky road. To this problem my solution was to breastfeed him on the side that he wouldn’t struggle with a lot and pump the other side. The side that he wasn’t struggling with is the side which my nipple is a bit smaller and I could hold him better with the same hand.
Big, inverted nipples are a reality which did not make it easy both to feed and to pump. Despite these challenges I was going to stop breastfeeding nor supplement further. To this date I still do not know what I could have done better to make it easier for my son to latch. Unfortunately, where I was staying, I couldn’t find a lactation consultant/specialist that I could go to for help. I tried a lot more other positions, with very minimal luck, but the position that worked best was the football hold. With time it did get better.
I believe that progress was delayed because I was still doing cup feeding mainly because of cracked nipples so, it took a bit longer for us to find the rhythm. These pains made me not feel comfortable with breastfeeding in front of other people because it didn’t give me the opportunity to scream when my son had the initial latch also, I didn’t want to be judged for not knowing how to get my son to latch on the first go. Growing up in a culture that does not speak up about these challenges makes it very difficult to open-up and for other people to understand. As a new mom, my biggest problem was that I did not want to be labeled as weak, and not knowing the obvious. Had I been braver, I most probably would have gotten over the problem sooner.
Not so victorious victory
One would ask, where my mother was through all these. She was there but had also never came across such a struggle. She would really help with holding the baby and moving him to the nipple and that way together we conquered. And as you can imagine, I needed to learn so that I could still feed my baby when she wasn’t around. Until my son and I managed to breastfeed with minimal struggles I was pumping and cup-feeding to avoid hating feeding times. Through is all my mom was a star, and my son a champ for not giving up even after knowing he could still get food even if he didn’t suck breastmilk for himself.