Hi all
Just thought I would add my experiences to this thread.....I have 2 boys, 1 aged 3yrs and the other just turned 12mths. My eldest was born prem at 32wks and he was initially fed via NGT so I was expressing like crazy, once he was strong enough to b/f I kept putting him to the breast but was really struggling with getting the latch right. I kept asking for help (at the time we were in a transitional care ward) and I have to say that there was a whole lot of breast-grabbing-shoving it in his mouth action going on...not nice and I felt very demoralised and feeling guilty enough about having given birth to this premature baby, not being able to feed properly REALLY upset me....I was still struggling with b/f when we were discharged 3wks later, it hurt EVERY time I fed, I would be in agony the whole time. In addition as much as I wanted to b/f I was hit by frustrations every step of the way, in particular my HV put a lot of pressure on to consider topping up with formula as my son had poor weight gain. I resisted pressure and continued b/f and he eventually self weaned at 12 months.
2nd time around I managed to go full term, had a horrendous assisted delivery and when asked about my choice of feeding on the p/n ward was met with "oh great, you're an experienced breastfeeder - would you like to register on our breast buddy scheme to help other Mum's?" !!!!!!! I'd just had a horrendous birth, hormones all over the place, had barely slept in 3 days, was extremely sore and just not in the right frame of mind at all!!

So it'd gone from my 1st delivery where it was very hands on to almost no support 2nd time around...and do you know what? I really needed that support 2nd time around, call me naive but I had no idea what to expect from a full term baby, how often to feed etc etc as my eldest's feeding routine had been 3 hourly by the clock via his NGT not on demand as expected with my full termer!!!

I battled through, again, with several weeks of pain, disappointment and frustration and he's just self weaned..again at 12mths old.

I know there are brilliant midwives out there who have a sympathetic approach to breastfeeding but unfortunately I didn't receive the benefit of it in my personal experience which is another one of the reasons for my strong desire to become a midwife...yes I'm a HUGE fan of breastfeeding BUT I also respect that it isn't for everyone and as I always think HAPPY MUM = HAPPY BABY!

Sorry, I've waffled on a bit there guys!!!

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Karen
Starting access course Sept 08 (hopefully!!)