Why did no one tell me how difficult breastfeeding can be? - an opinion-based blog

Baby Leo has just been born. We are having some lovely skin to skin bonding time when the midwife approaches and says “it’s time to pop him on the breast”. I’m excited. I’ve grown this baby for 9 months and now I get to feed him from my body. How wild is that?! 

So she pops him on and then rushes off to deliver one of the other 6 babies born that day in the birthing suite. I think I’m nailing it. The oxytocin has well and truly kicked in. 

Let me tell you, I was in fact, NOT nailing it.

That night, every hour and a half to two hours, I’m sitting up and feeding my baby. By the next morning my nipples are sore and red. They sting when I run the warm water over them in the shower and by the afternoon I can see the grazes forming. I think to myself, “is this right? Surely it’s not meant to be like this.”

24 hours later, a lovely older midwife (somewhere around mum’s age) comes in to check my stitches and see how I’m going. Being the personality that I am, I don’t usually like asking for help at the best of times, and this is something I feel that should just come naturally, right? But my emotions get the better of me and I begin to tear up as I ask; “Am I doing this breastfeeding thing right? It really kind of hurts. Is it meant to? Can you check to see if I’m doing this correctly?”

I wish I had written down that midwife’s name. She was invaluable to me at that time and I don’t think I’ll ever forget her. She sat with me for what felt like hours until I was confident I had the hang of it. She told me it could be normal for it to sting a little as my body gets used to it and as my baby becomes less famished. She educated me about how powerful breastmilk is and how it can actually be used to heal the nipple. She came and watched Leo latch at every feed that night, because apparently we hadn’t been doing such a great job the night before. 

Unfortunately though, much of the damage had already been done, and my difficult breastfeeding journey didn’t end there. 10 days after Leo was born, I ended up in the emergency department. I’d been to the GP fearing that I’d developed mastitis. I had. But funnily enough, I’d also developed an allergy to penicillin (Yep, it’s a thing that you can develop allergies after pregnancy that you never had before. Just wonderful!). I felt like I’d been hit by a bus, my boobs were killing me and to top it off I had a full body rash, a swollen tongue and itchy eyes as a reaction to the antibiotics I’d been prescribed. Traumatic to say the least. Turns out I actually had an ulcer, not just mastitis in the breast. Hectic. Am I selling this to you?

Anyway, enough about that. The reason for that backstory is this; breastfeeding IS HARD. It’s ok if you have to ask for help. Ask for ALL THE HELP. Honestly, I wish someone had told me this as I feel my experience would have been a whole lot better had I been more prepared. It’s so odd because we all think it’ll just come to us naturally and easily, but truly, ask yourself, how many women have you watched, like actually properly watched, get a baby to latch to their breast in your lifetime? We live in a society nowadays where we all cover up thanks to the funny looks shot our way if we decide to feed whilst we are out and about.

A funnier, more lighthearted story for you. A girlfriend of mine has a 2 month old. She had to hike it into the city to get to her bank branch (I feel like my mother when I say this but it really is another pet peeve of mine; why are they closing all the branches and making our lives more difficult?). Anyway, she made it into the city with a practically newborn baby which is a feat in and of itself. Her baby starts to stir and needs to be fed, so she finds a quiet spot in the bank building where there are some lounge chairs. A very important looking lady and her male colleague walk out of a nearby conference room and as they stroll past, the lady tells my friend that she really shouldn’t do that in public and that there are toilets around the corner.

The audacity. 

But wait, let me tell you the best part. The important looking lady picked the wrong girl to insult. This girl has balls. Her response was golden; “when you start eating your low carb tuna wrap in the toilet, I’ll happily feed my daughter in there”.

BOOM.

It’s attitudes like that that are making our breastfeeding journey so much more difficult. Humans naturally learn how to perform movements by watching the movements of other people. If we all stopped being so “respectable” and just whipped out the titty and fed out babes when they wanted to be fed, I feel we’d be setting ourselves up for greater success. Don’t you agree?

For support, you can try the website or helpline below, or get in touch with a local lactation consultant. 

https://www.thewomens.org.au/health-information/breastfeeding/breastfeeding-problems/mastitis

Australian Breastfeeding Association 24 Helpline - 800 686 268