This is Keishas breastfeeding story. I have never know a mom who was able to tandem breastfeed on one breast! Her last baby was unable to breastfeed and gain weight. This is what this amazing mommy did! * I Support you * I nursed my 1st baby happily through & past her first year. I was young, and had never known anyone to formula feed. It was an easy thing for me to both choose to do & to physically do. Then came baby #2. At 36 weeks pregnant with her I developed a very concerning lump in one of my breasts. The needle biopsy & ultrasounds came back inconclusive with unknown substance. I had my baby, fully intending to breastfeed her as well with a follow appointment with our areas breast specialist in place. Well when my milk came in, something prevented it from coming out of the affected breast. So I saw the specialist who performed an incision & drainage believing that I must have a raging mastitis. That wasnt it, but I had several more procedures done on that breast trying to figure out what the heck was going on with the breast specialist telling me ultimately that hes not used to working on lactating breasts & he felt I needed to wean to get a better diagnosis & treatment plan in place. Meanwhile I am nursing my baby with the one breast & having to supplement. I was more hurt by the idea if feeding my baby formula than anything. I got help from LLL & several IBCLCs & even emailed with Dr. Jack Newman to try & resolve my problem breast. I finally found a general surgeon who said I had entire tracts of ducts that had developed fistulas & we needed to remove them. I went into surgery to have a fair bit of that breast tissue removed at about 4 weeks postpartum. I still had to supplement. I was depressed, so depressed but determined to keep nursing even just with only one breast. That determination got my baby finally nursing exclusively at about 5 months old but it also gave me wicked PPD. She nursed until just after her 3rd birthday right before her brother was born. I nursed him problem free until he was 2 & tandem nursed him along with his little brother who also weaned around 2 y/o. I cant believe I tandem nursed from 1 breast!!! I had no idea that was even possible. Enter baby #5. She was born at 36 weeks as I developed pre-e. She had a picture perfect latch. No pain, no irritation, but also no weight gain. She was only 5.2lb at birth which is tiny for me as her brother before was 9.10lb and by the time we were home from the hospital she was still under 5lb & couldnt seem to gain any weight. Enter more IBCLCs as she was readmitted for jaundice & I needed some help porking her up to get her home. We opted to supplement a bit to try & flush some of the bilirubin out. It worked and we went home but she kept dropping weight. She couldnt effectively transfer milk as she was burning more calories trying to nurse than what she could take in before falling asleep at the breast. So we made the decision to exclusively formula feed. Given my history of having only one breast, being tied to a pump for the hours needed to make enough to feed her, would have left me with no time or energy for anything else & I had 4 other kids at home to care for. Thankfully the IBCLCs & several women in my life I worked with this time, helped me not only try to nurse my baby, but to FEED her formula & encouraged me that I was not a failure for not nursing, but that my baby would be just as healthy & happy no matter what & that I was a good mom. She is now 8 months old & just as fat & happy & healthy as any mom could want. When I looked at that picture of my still too tiny baby, this is when I began exclusively formula feeding. …. Without guilt & with support this time.
Posted on: Sun, 10 Aug 2014 23:59:05 +0000
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