The Importance of Support

The simply amazing mummy over at www.dummymummy.co.uk (she has a three week old you know) has very kindly written about the need we mums have for support – and she don’t mean supporting our breasts… rather the very real need we have for support from other breastfeeding mums and counsellors – especially if feeding isn’t textbook

The Importance of Support

Before my daughter was born 22 months ago, I had read about all the benefits of breastfeeding, and knew I’d like to breastfeed her if possible.  What I hadn’t realised was just how much I would enjoy it, and how important in the bonding process it would become.

Apart from all the health benefits breastfeeding offers, not to mention the convenience (no getting up in the middle of the night to sterilise bottles and make up formula, or battling with staff at restaurants to warm up milk), the five or ten or twenty minutes spent with my little girl while she fed was just so precious.  It gave me chance to focus on her and nothing else, to watch her face and notice how she had changed and grown, and gave me time to simply be with her.

At nearly thirteen months old, my daughter decided she had had enough.  I had gone back to work three months previously, and had dropped to two breastfeeds a day, and eventually she stopped wanting breastfeeds at all.  It was her choice, which made me feel good about stopping, but I missed our time together!

Just over three weeks ago, I gave birth to my second child, a boy.  There was no question as to whether I would breastfeed him or not, and was confident it would be as easy as it had been the first time.  He took to it as well as his sister had, and I was relieved that I was able to breastfeed again.  When my little boy was two weeks old, he woke during the night for a feed, and once he latched on and the let down reflex kicked in, I had horrendous burning pain throughout my breast and in my nipple.  I tried to let him carry on, but just couldn’t bear the pain.  I switched sides, and attempted to hand express from the painful side, but no milk would come.  My breast was hot and swollen and incredibly painful to touch.  My first thought was that it was mastitis and I began to cry as I remembered hearing stories from other mums who had stopped breastfeeding due to mastitis being so painful.

The following day I rang a local breastfeeding support group called Mum2Mum.  I spoke to a breastfeeding facilitator who was extremely helpful and told me it sounded very much like I had a blocked duct.  She suggested that I take ibuprofen for the pain, use hot and cold flannels before trying to hand express, and to encourage my baby to have two really good feeds on the painful side.  I did exactly as she said, and later that day I was much more comfortable and my milk was flowing freely again.  Mum2Mum also sent a facilitator out to see me at home, to observe feeding and to take a look at my breasts to make sure it wasn’t mastitis.  She was very helpful and although my son’s latch was good, she noticed his position wasn’t great and showed me how to reposition him so that he wouldn’t pull my nipple as he had been doing.  Thankfully, it wasn’t mastitis and the advice given to me over the phone had made a world of difference.

Support for breastfeeding mothers is so important.  It never really occurred to me how much support I had with both of my babies, not just this time from the Mum2Mum group to whom I am hugely thankful, but from my own mum and my partner’s mum, both of whom successfully breastfed all their children.  Just knowing that they had done it and been successful was a subconscious support for me.  There are many new mums whose own mothers didn’t breastfeed, and who aren’t lucky enough to have a good support network around them, who don’t fully realise all the benefits of breastfeeding, or for whom breastfeeding has not been an option.  It is for these mums that National Breastfeeding Awareness Week is so important; to highlight the benefits of breastfeeding, to let them know there is no reason to be embarrassed about it, and to let mums know that there is plenty of support available for them.