I had decent milk production for a standard mom but had a super size baby (no, not the 16 pound one, just not the 6.5 which seems to be the average in my family) at 9lbs 7oz.
Supplemented and cranked in the Fenugreek - nursed and pumped until the kid was nearly a year (worked after the fourth trimester) and still nurse today. Thought about domiprodone to eliminate formula supplementation completely, but decided with my bizzaro medical history it wasn’t worth the shipments from New Zeland.
A good list of drugs and foods that help/hinder lacation can be found on kellymom.com.
I had the evil lac from hell, but I got over it. Good thing I was the sixth grandkid and had plenty of lactating siblings to get me through the rough patches. I think at one of our meetings she was trying to scare us by telling us there was mold and rat hairs in formula, and slaughterhouse offal. (Isn’t there mold in cheese? And penicillin? And I’m sure my kid has found all kinds of crap under that old fridge that I didn’t catch him ingesting.)
Some of the uber-centric-crunchy-posing moms will insist that the drugs, recovery, and removal of the baby that is ‘necessary’ for a c-section (or ‘medicated’ birth) can ruin a breastfeeding relationship, but I think a serious study needs to be done on all factors of lacation - I think there are underlying unsurmountable physical causes more often than thought.
My mom had a c-section with me and couldn’t nurse me. This probably had more to do with her labor (we both almost died) than it did the fact she had a c-section. Whatever it was, she didn’t produce milk, just dripped a bit. They took me to another city to a NICU as soon as I was born, so she pretty much never had a chance anyway. I was miles away, and she was busy trying to survive herself.
Now that I think about it, I’m pretty sure my grandmother didn’t produce milk with her babies, either, and she had natural births.
I produced it, tried to nurse but holy shit did it hurt. Just the pain of getting my breast gnawed on was bad enough but the CRAMPING! I pumped maybe two bottle’s worth after we brought her home, but it took so long just to get out a good couple of ounces. Since I’ll (presumably) be working full time when I have my next baby, I guess I’ll never have a chance to nurse.
Heh, I’m graduating from medical school in 18 months, it’s gotta be good for something :)!
More anecdotal stuff, my mother had 4 c-sections (1 emergency, 3 elective) and breastfed all 3 surviving babies…in the case of my youngest sister until she was over 2 years old.
Something to bear in mind is that if you are the kind of person who sunburns easily or has sensitive skin, you’ll probably find it more painful to breastfeed than darker, less sensitive skined women.
I agree with Chotii… Some Lactation nurses are not created equal. I had a C-ection almost 22 years ago and my experience was less than helpful from the lactation nurses. My milk did not come in until 5 or so days after but did not give up. I kept trying and read anything I could. This was very helpful and was able to successfully breast feed for three months or so.
Here’s a bump to see if anyone has any further information for the Great Breastfeeding Magnesium Controversy of 2005, or if we can lay this thread safely to rest.
Seriously. I’m going to have a baby in June, and if this is an issue, I’d like to know about it so I can make an informed decision.
Well, I had a C-section and I had lots of trouble nursing. I just wasn’t able to nurse at first, it hurt so bad that I’d start crying as soon as my baby’s lips even touched me. The nurses were no help, I finally had to give her formula to keep her from being hungry. My milk came in four days after birth and I was able to start pumping (and she went off formula and onto just-breast-milk-from-a-bottle by the time she was about a week old) and that’s what I did - every three hours around the clock. I’m very glad I had already made the decision to spend the money on a really good Medela electric breast pump or I might not have been able to breast feed at all.
It wasn’t until about a week after I gave birth that I was finally able to have a consultation with a lactation consultant who diagnosed the problem - I had a yeast infection in my breasts (intra-ductal, not just surface) which is what was causing it to be SO painful. The consultant told me that that was common in C-section births because they give you some major antibiotics and those antibiotics just kill everything - which upsets the balance and lets the yeast flourish. Don’t know if that’s true or not, but it made sense.
My daughter was probably about three weeks old before I was able to actually start nursing her (once the infection was cleared up) and that wasn’t easy either since she was used to the bottle. We had lots of problems with latch-on. It was a couple more months before things eased - and only in the past three months that it’s been “easy” (she’s almost 11 months old now).
For the record - I’m very pro-breastfeeding, but I do have to say that my daughter was (except at first) exclusively breast fed until she was almost 5.5 months old. I also started her on solids very slowly, started with cereal, one thing at a time, as much fresh food as possible, etc., etc. Even with all that, she’s gotten sick a lot. Everything that goes through the day care- she gets it. She’s had two bad ear infections and about three different viruses as well. Perhaps not getting much colostrum affected this, or the fact that she did have to have some formula. She started to self-wean a bit at about 9 months (and that’s when I stopped pumping at work, too, because my supply was decreasing and we were having to supplement a bit with formula) and now I only nurse her for a few minutes in the morning and at night (she’s 11 months old)
Wait a second… It’s normal for new mothers to not start lactating for five days? I presume that in a modern, first-world situation, the baby would be given formula for that time… But formula wasn’t always available, and probably still isn’t in some parts of the world. What did the baby eat while waiting for Mom to lactate, in the days before formula? Were babies routinely handed off to a wetnurse? I thought that was only an option for the rich. Or was this just a routine cause of infant mortality, and everyone took it for granted?
Chronos, before the milk comes in the mother is producing colostrum, which is all the baby really needs, usually. However, it is not unusual, even in today’s climate to be pressured to give bottles, if breastfeeding is not going perfectly smoothly. My husband had to ask that one of the nurses be barred from our room after my first birth because she was getting so nasty about it.
In regards to the OP, I didn’t have a caesarian, but I did bleed a lot after my first birth and never had any milk. My daughter wouldn’t latch, which may have had something to do with it, but I pumped with a hospital-grade pump every two hours for a week, and never got a drop.
5 days is not uncommon, although 2-4 days is more regular. Babies simply don’t need much the first few days. They’re (if they’re term babies) born with a little extra padding to get them through this time. Nearly all babies lose weight the first week - up to about 10% of their birth weight is no cause for alarm. By the end of the second week, though, it’s expected that they’ll begin gaining, or the doctor may get worried and advise supplementation.
Supplementing with formula is not the default anymore, even in modern, first-world situations, and it’s not recommended for mothers who intend to breastfeed unless the baby loses more than 10% of the birth weight or is premature and too weak to survive weight loss. The mother’s body depends on the suckling to release prolactin and oxytocin. If the baby is satisfied with a bottle and doesn’t suck enough on the breast, it can be hard to get enough milk to produce and let down in the breasts.
If we’re talking full-term babies, lack of milk for the first few days is not associated with infant mortality.
'Sides, like I’ve said before - nutrition is one benefit to breastfeeding, but only one. Those first days of suckling, even if the colostrum has run out (there’s generally only a couple of tablespoons of colostrum) and the milk hasn’t kicked in yet, are still a time of bonding, physical and emotional comfort for the mother and the baby, as well as releasing oxytocin to constrict the mother’s uterus back into shape.
Oh, ok. I figured “milk” = “liquid produced by mammary glands for nourishing young”. I didn’t realize that the first stuff to come out had a different name. And I find it a bit surprising that a healthy newborn could live mostly off its own fat for close to a week, but I guess I’ll take you guys’ word on it.
I also realize the importance of mother-child bonding, and I would sincerely hope that even mothers who use formula would get in plenty of snuggle time. But of course, there are some situations where breastfeeding is unfeasible or inadequate, so formula does have its role.