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Thanks to all those who have contributed articles and comments to the Breastfeeding Carnival for Breastfeeding Awareness Week. I know it has helped and supported many women understand that it is not always easy to breastfeed. You may not get the support you want or need, but if you want to do it, go ahead, give it a go, and do what’s right for you and your family. Remember that all your babies will be different, so will your breastfeeding experience.

Also, don’t beat yourself up if things don’t work out. If you’ve done what you can, you sometimes just have to move on. Sometimes, like after a breast reduction, you have your baby with no idea if you can breastfeed or not.

So, get as much information as you can – both medical and from other previous breastfeeders. Remember that your breasts are made for breastfeeding. It is cheaper and less equipment is required than bottle feeding. You only need good nursing bras, fitted correctly, and the will to succeed. Plus lots of support from family, friends and midwives.

The Breastfeeding Carnival Index:

Breastfeeding – Every Baby is Different

Breastfeeding – It’s not Always Easy

Breastfeeding – The Medical Reasons to Do It

Breastfeeding – Can you be too honest?

Breastfeeding – Naivety kept me going

Breastfeeding – It is possible after a breast reduction

Breastfeeding – Breast is Best? It’s what they’re made for

Breastfeeding – It just didn’t work out

Breastfeeding – I was one of the few who gave it a go

I’ve heard some awful stories this week about total lack of support for women who wanted to breastfeed, but felt that the midwives were more interested in getting them out of hospital rather than supporting them to breastfeed……maybe we should have a carnival about the support we need for breastfeeding?

I’d love to hear your comments on the Breastfeeding Carnival. Even if you haven’t commented on the posts, it would help me plan future events like this one if I know if it’s been helpful. What else could we have done to improve it for you, or what can we do in the future to add further information to this.

Today is day 9 and the final day of our Breastfeeding Carnival. I think we could go on with stories from women about their experiences, but we won’t just now. If you however, having read the Carnival you would like to tell your story, then please do get in touch. We have a regular Friday Guest Blog Spot that is used for a variety of topics. As you know we are pro-breastfeeding here. But we also know that women have different experiences and different family and health situations. Whatever is right for you and family should be celebrated.

So today, we have Lynn, mum, wife, swimming teacher, aquafit instructor and buisness woman, sharing her story.

I have been breastfeeding my daughter, Annabelle, for 4 months. I always knew I wanted to
breastfeed from the day I found out I was pregnant. I didn’t need to read any leaflets about
health benefits to persuade me, to me it seemed the most natural, motherly way to feed my
baby and there was no other way. I naively thought everyone breastfeed or at least tried,
how stupid was I? continue reading…

When TJ asked me if I would write a post for breastfeeding awareness week, I wasn’t sure it was appropriate. You see, I didn’t breastfeed Moo. Well, not for more than 2 weeks.

But the more I thought about it, the more I thought there was a place for it. I’m not anti-breastfeeding. I’m very pro-breastfeeding, for all the reasons given in the other posts in this carnival. But from my perspective, the important thing is to be prepared.

Moo was born bang on her due date. She was a big girl, 8lb6oz. She was perfect.

But her delivery wasn’t. You can read more about it here [http://bumblingalong.wordpress.com/2009/12/02/a-birth-story-for-a-birth-day/], but in essence we ended up with an emergency c-section, and 2 hours in surgery, a blood transfusion, and a return to labour ward for one on one mdiwife care…

But as soon as I was out of surgery, Moo was at my breast, skin to skin. She nuzzled up. She tried to latch on. She succeeded. She tried to feed. She gave it a good go. She failed, she succeeding, but she was trying and doing really well. We were all really pleased!

If I remember rightly, and I can’t remember why, the midwives helped me to express some colostrum, which we gave to Moo in a syringe. We definitely knew she was getting something.

The midwives were great, helping me to feed, showing me different positions, checking Moo’s latch. By this time she’d got the hang of it, and was latching on really well. 3 days later we were out of hospital and settling in back home.

Moo fed regularly, and was a contented little thing. But when the midwife came to check on us, she was losing weight. Quickly. In the first 5 days she lost a pound. The midwife checked Moo’s latch. It was good. But she wasn’t swallowing. Because there was nothing there.

We got a breast pump. I expressed. The pump is still pristine, because never a drop of breastmilk sullied it. We did skin to skin. We relaxed, as much as we could, but hanging over us was the promise from the midwife that if Moo didn’t start putting on weight, she would need to go back to hospital. So we supplemented. We started on formula. And she loved it.

Hubbie was happy with that. Let’s move to formula. But no, I wanted to keep trying. So when Moo needed a feed, I breastfed, and then bottlefed, and then expressed, in the hope that my milk would arrive. It wasn’t surprising it was late. I had a traumatic birth. I spoke to my NCT breastfeeding counseller, friends who had struggled with feeding. I read all I could. I ate well, I drank well.

But you know, after 2 weeks? It was enough. Moo was thriving on the formula, and my breast pump had still seen no milk.

I don’t know whether I’m within that 2% who have a medical reason why they can’t breastfeed. I do know that Moo needed food, and my breasts didn’t provide. I don’t know whether it would all have worked out had I persevered, and I don’t know if I will be able to breastfeed if I have another child. But I’d like to.

Breast is normal, and breast is best. But some kind of nourishment and a happy mother are essential.

Please, give breastfeeding a go. But please don’t beat yourself up, as I did, if it doesn’t work out. I told myself that before I had Moo. But when the hormones kicked in, I couldn’t accept that I wasn’t able to give Moo the best, as she deserved.

In retrospect, I know she had the best that I could give. Me. 100%

Thanks to BumblingTweets who blogs at BumblingAlong for sharing her story. It really is important to remember that sometimes things have to be right for the family.

Personally I had to suddenly stop feeding no.2 when my Mum was really poorly. He was 8 months old, but it wasn’t planned, it just had to be like that. I felt guilty that I’d let him down as he wasn’t ready to finish, but my Mum and Dad needed me and I couldn’t look after an 8month old full time as well as my parents 250 miles away from my husband.

The majority of women can breastfeed their babies.  I’m not saying they ‘should’ that’s a whole different conversation, but bar 2% who genuinely can’t because of medical conditions, the majority of women can!

Just like women are designed to carry and give birth to their babies, our bodies are designed to feed them.  That’s what breasts are for at the end of the day – sorry guys, sad but true.  Our babies are also born with lots of breastfeeding friendly characteristics.  They have receding chins so when their chins make contact with our breasts, their heads are tilted back and in the perfect position for latching on.  Their little noses are ‘squishy’ for the sole purpose that their noses will ‘squish’ when pressed against a breast allowing them to still breathe. That little stepping reflex brand new babies do is so they can literally ‘walk’ their way up to their mothers breast – I kid you not – watch this fantastic clip on YouTube if you don’t believe me. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=auVmnvwNUOE&feature=related

So if it’s so natural, why, according to UNICEF are only 35% women breastfeeding at one week, 21% at six weeks and 3% at five months? continue reading…

Day 6 of our Breastfeeding Carnival and we’ve got a post about a topic that many women ask about. I’m delighted that one of our guests this week is able offer her experience to others. Please do add your own in the comments, or share the support you had/didn’t have.

I had only a 50/50 chance of being able to breastfeed as I had a breast reduction operation in 1996.  When I was first being referred to a consultant, at the age of 21, I met with an extremely unsympathetic male doctor who suggested I had a baby and breastfed so that my breasts could be put to their real use  This was extremely unhelpful as I was in the middle of a teacher training course at the time.  And, to be honest, having children, let alone breastfeeding, was the last thing on my mind at the time. continue reading…

Day 5 brings an international poster to our Breastfeeding Carnival. But the experiences are very similar to some of those already shared.

My question today is, we should be preparing our future mothers to understand about breastfeeding long before they give birth, and need to support them once they have. How can we do this given that we all have different bodies, different babies and know that we’ll have different breastfeeding experiences?

1 first baby born 2000, blisters in hospital and mastitus a few weeks later. Breastfed for 24 months later, even tho I returned to work when baby was 5 months old !

The toughest stages were the mastitus with my first born and the option to continue or not, being 26 and naïve and thinking that it comes with the territory, I kept going. continue reading…

Day 4 of our Breastfeeding Carnival to celebrate breastfeeding. It’s the official start of Breastfeeding Awareness Week, when all over the country there will be events to support breastfeeding, and answer questions about how to do it, and offer support to those women about to start breastfeeding, and continuing to breastfeed.

Thank you to all our contributors so far, and all those to come this week. Please add your comments. I’m getting lots of ‘off blog’ comments about how this is helping women to understand that they’re “doing things right”, even if it’s not how they expected it to be from the information given. This is the theme for today’s post.

After I volunteered to write a guest post for Breastfeeding Awareness Week I developed mastitis, so the last thing I wanted to do was write a post about breastfeeding and how I’d recommend it.

However, I realised this is exactly when I should be writing it, because even when it’s successful breastfeeding has its’ challenges and if we were more honest about these, perhaps many women wouldn’t feel they were failing and would carry on longer. continue reading…

Day 3 of our Breastfeeding Carnival and we’re finding out about the benefits to mother and baby of breastfeeding. But, how does this help us to actually do it? Did knowing it was good for you and baby encourage you to breastfeed? Or were you blinded by too much science? Please let us know – it really helps other women.

With it being Breastfeeding Awareness Week I thought I would tell you about the medical benefits of breastfeeding:

• The risk of necrotizing entocolitis (a medical condition primarily seen in premature babies, where portions of the bowel undergo necrosis or tissue death) is five times more likely in babies fed formula milk.
• Breastfed babies also have less diarrhoea and lower respiratory tract infection and have statistically significantly lower hospital admission rates. continue reading…

Efe - a contented breastfed baby

Though my daughter is already 2 years old, whenever I think back of breastfeeding I feel so good in my heart. I’m glad I had chance to experience this amazing thing.

It was not easy at the beginning at all. My baby was born at 8 o’clock in the morning and we were trying with breastfeeding immediately, but she didn’t seem to find the correct technique. For me the whole thing was strange, I don’t think I have ever seen a newborn baby from so close, and it was very scary that I was the one responsible for feeding that little person. It was after 4pm when we finally got it. I was so proud of her that she didn’t give it up and I’m sure it was worth it. continue reading…

This is Day One of Our Breastfeeding Carnival. Every day we’ll be hearing about a different experience, or view of breastfeeding. Please add your comments and pass on to others. We want to support all women everywhere to breastfeed, but with the knowledge that we’re all different and what works for someone else, may not be right for us. So, here’s Jenny’s experience:

My first daughter was born in 2005 and looking back, I’d never really considered her being a

Jenny Flintoft - Mum of 2

bottle fed baby – breastfeeding was always in my plan. When I went to see my doctor to get officially registered as pregnant, he asked me whether I hoped to breastfeed. When I said I did, he replied, “Good girl. Some take to it, some don’t. But go in expecting to love it and it should make it a good experience for you.”

Considering this was a male doctor just 2 months away from retiring, who had been my GP since I was a little girl, I thought that was refreshingly fabulous advice! continue reading…