"Labour and birth"

Following an emergency section where the care and support of the staff was excellent, specifically the anaesthetist Sarah who kept me calm and informed throughout my section upon moving to the post natal ward I feel like the available support to breast feed my baby was lacking.

The staff were all friendly but it was very clear how hurried and rushed they all were, my son was born on Wednesday morning and by Thursday afternoon had still not fed as I had not managed to get him to latch on, I was very keen to breast feed and each time someone came in I was reassured that he had back up fat stores and not to worry. I became very upset before one of the midwives spent some time with me and I managed to get him to latch on, this success didn’t last and upon buzzing for support again during many feeds they simply did not have the capacity to help. I was discharged when my baby has urates in his nappy and was re-admitted two days later due to weight loss and my son becoming lethargic, at this point I had to reach for formula to top him up. 

Upon readmission to the transitional care unit the support and care I received was outstanding, specifically from Leanda who was very empathetic and supportive the entire time I was there but all the staff in that unit deserve recognition for what they do, it’s amazing. 

However, my son had been diagnosed with tongue tie which was causing the issues with latching on and I was informed it would be a 3 week wait to be seen at the clinic to have this looked at, meanwhile every bottle he was given made him more frustrated at the breast despite me pumping every feed and following the very varying advise to try to get him to latch on, it seemed everyone told me something different to do or try.

Infant feeding support visited me often in the transitional care unit and only this team provided consistent advise. However I do not feel that video calls to support feeding work well, only a home visit made a difference and then again when I tried myself it did not go to plan.

I do feel like if I had better support in the post natal ward to feed and had not had to reach for the bottle things would be different. I sadly had to give up my breast feeding journey after feeling it was having too much of an impact on my mental health and mood, not to mention having a very unhappy baby. 

I wanted to highlight this as the post natal ward is clearly very short staffed (by admission of the staff) and if there was more support to feed at an early stage I think the success rate would be higher and the emotional stress on new mums trying to establish feeding with what feels like too little support, conflicting advise and being left to work it out yourself is really not good enough when there is often a lot of pressure to breast feed. 

 

Many thanks,