I tried looking through the archives but not successful. I have a
patient who had a lot of medical issues at delivery, hemorrhaged during
c/s, almost ended up with hysterectomy... She was a very weak mom and
every time she breastfed she got lightheaded and felt as though she was
going to pass out. At the recommendation of her doctor she stopped
breastfeeding at 6 weeks post partum. She did not ever have trouble
getting infant to latch, it did take about a week for her milk to come
in, she always had to supplement after the feeding with a bottle.  After
3 months post partum she began to feel more like her old self and
healed. She never wanted to do anything but breastfeed and she works at
another area hospital, mom's office is close to their LC office.  The LC
there gave her a prescription for Domperidone and she began taking it
about a month ago, she was then 4 months post partum. Her milk came in
within a couple of days after starting the Dom and pumping, she has been
pumping regularly about 8 times a day and she gets at least 1- 2 ounces
per breast when she pumps, and often more. She has a great milk
ejection, that stimulates when the baby is within breathing distance.
She feels she has much more milk than she ever had during those first 6
weeks. 

 

Here is the problem... over the last 4 weeks she has been trying to get
the baby to the breast without success. She has tried (and not
necessarily in this order), having baby around other breastfeeding
babies (her neighbor is breastfeeding twins the same age) Sleepy time
nursing, skin to skin,  feeding the bottle as if she were breastfeeding,
beginning the feeding with a bottle and transitioning over to the
breast, using a nipple shield with breastmilk already let down,
supplementing at the breast.  She wants very much to transition her baby
back to the breast. 

 

At our office visit we tried relaxing, and to just be near mom's breast
without trying to feed, we attempted transitioning from a bottle to the
breast, and tried every non-threatening position we could think of but
didn't want to get baby worked up so we let her guide us as to when to
stop trying. I have given mom the BFAR website and also a really great
link to : http://www.internationalbreastfeedingjournal.com/content/1/1/5

An article on adoptive breastfeeding, it has a lot of great information
on getting an infant to the breast. I also suggested mom try the warm
bath and relaxed environment, that's practically the only thing I
thought of that she hasn't tried yet. (and that we couldn't try in our
office!)  I probably have left out several things that she has tried,
and haven't really gone into the fine details of how we tried these
things in our visit today, but I wanted to give you all enough
background to see that mom has tried in a non-threatening, relaxed way
to ease the baby back into latching to the breast. I also suggested she
try the first few times in the bath to not put baby to the breast but
rather just let her relax and be close to the breast and if she happens
to lick or try to latch to go with it following her cues, and not push.


 

Does anyone have experience of a baby going back to the breast after the
first few months? And what methods worked?  Thanks for any information
on getting an older baby back to the breast. 

 

Pam Price IBCLC 

Charleston SC 29407

 


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