One year OLD

Well my baby was one on Saturday. A day of reflection and of celebration. I looked back at how hard a journey I had to breastfeed her. We're still breastfeeding several times a day and also at night. Need to sort the night feeds out as it's very tiring

8 months and 3 weeks

She's still going strong on the old breastmilk.

She's eating 3 square meals a day and having loads of breastmilk in between :)

I am still giving her a formula feed at 6.30pm but more often than not she doesn't finish it and I think that if I fed her myself that would satisfy her but I'm a little scared after everything we've been through that she'll... I don't know.... It's also a chance for my husband to feed her and for me to have 5 minutes to myself.

Regarding the domperidone. I've been on the maximum dose until recently. i tried many times to come off it but it affected my supply..

Anyway, in the last 2 weeks I forgot to take some doses and I have realised that things seem to be ok so I am very cautiously down to 3 tablets a day ( I was originally on 9).

I haven't had S weighed for months but she looks and feels very happy. Weighings were such and integral part of her early life that I am determined not to become so caught up with it all again.

Thanks for reading my blog

7 1/2 months

and still going.

S is still brestfeeding and is down to one bottle of formula a day.

I am still on the domperidone and Sharon my lactation consultant has just been awarded an MBE- yes and MBE for services to infant feeding. Isn't that bloody marvellous

Some good

Was talking to my friend N last week. She gave birth to a little girl in February. Anyway it slipped out that since seeing me go through the traumas I have she has been donating breastmilk to the bank. She hadn't told me previously as she didn't want to upset me.

This is as a direct consequence of my problems. She saw how devastated I was through the process and was upset that she couldn't do anything so decided to look into donating

well...

....up till now I have always thought that for whatever reason it was my body let me down .

BUT, I have been in discussions on an internet forum I use with a breastfeeding counsellor.

This has led me to discuss things in more depth with Sharon and also to receive more insight from the online counsellor.

There are many many reasons why this could have happened. Because it happened to me doesn't necessarily mean that it could happen to you but these are the thoughts that Sharon had- hope it's allright to post it here but if it helps ONE other mother then its a good thing

************************************************************************************
Sharon

that somehow your prolactin receptors had knocked off early for some reason - whether the contributory factors were your pn bleed, anaemia, your blood disorder thingey etc....who knows...but your milk cells were therefore not firing on all cylinders so to speak.

if this had happended to a primip i would have thought it was a low genetically determined lactational potential but as you bf so well 1st time this is deffo not the case

i have wondered if you have had some mild form of sheehan's syndrome. usually means complete absence of lactation due to a severe blood loss leading to pituitary malfunction = no lactational hormones. but maybe there can be degrees of it..... i don't actually know! so little research is done into bf issues

whether there was some disruption to pituitary function and then the sleepy baby thing contributed as the milk wasn't moved out of the breast often enough and the feedback inhibitor of lactation protein (FIL) built up & sent messages of we don't need milk to an already depleted cavalry of milk cells so even more of them shut up shop ......?

(the prolactin receptors on the milk cells kinda open for business after delivery of placenta in response to changes in hormone levels and are activated by high levels of circulating prolactin - this turns the milk cell on to milk production)

however for most mums the steps you took and hard work you put in to address the issue would have been enough to have reactivated the process - that it didn't leads me to believe there was more to it as above

Yes the wt loss was over 10% (10.9%) and this should have been picked up & managed proactively but for most health profs all they see is bf failure & mums that accept that - the hp rarely needs to think of bf solutions to bf problems - so if baby loses wt - give him formula etc. instead of improving bf manangment - attachment etc - the problem there of course is so many of them don't recognise poor attachment & do not know the bf management strategies
************************************************************************************

respnse to comments on previous post

tiktok- thanks for the comments- they make total sense. 8lb 8oz to 7lb 9oz was much more than a 10% drop and something should have been picked up sooner

i did have skin to skin with her after birth but she slept most of the next 24 hrs although i did feed her. Lack of help at home and dealing with a toddler so i couldn't just sit with baby probably exacabated things if its like you say (which I am inclined to agree with you when i think back to her feeding)

6 1/2 months

Just a quick update. Haven't had any weighings recently so felt no need to update really. Having a discussion over on Mumsnet at the moment and have posted a link to here so thought I'd update.

S is 6 1/2 months and eating well. We are still perservering with the breastfeeding. She is still on 1 or 2 bottles a day and I have stopped the Fenugreek ( because I ran out basically and couldn't get to town to buy more and then I noticed it wasn't making a difference anyway.

I'm still on 9 domperidone tablets a day and also the folic acid. I'm scared of stopping the domp again incase we have another adverse reaction.

I was determined to get to 6 months and we managed it. I don't know how long we'll manage now.

S sleeps all night and is a very content happy little baby