I have been following the C-section thread these last few days and decided to
speak up from my own experience. I had my fifth C-section in Dec, 1999,
after which I, the overproducing milk queen, had a baby girl suffering from
ABO blood incompatibility and dehydration. At first I refused to believe the
pediatrician's opinion that she was dehydrated, since I was nursing her very
frequently and had such a history over oversupply (at one point just a couple
of years before this I was nursing another newborn, nursing one toddler and a
preschooler (infrequently), and also pumping successfully for a newborn
nephew whose mom was experiencing what was later determined to be true
lactation failure). But finally I had to face the fact that she really WAS
dehydrated. I talked in great frustration to my lactation comsultant (since
I am not one) who told me that a possible reason for the problem with my
supply could have been all the fluid I had received during the surgery. I
was swollen from hips to feet, quite severely. In spite of this and a
complication with my bladder not returning to normal quickly I was
"discharged" after the required three days to another room for moms whose
babies had to stay in the hospital (by this time my daughter was receiving
bili light treatment. I had to take care of myself, and try to get the baby
to latch correctly behind make shift screens in a back room of the
nursery(they didn't want me to be seen (??)), with my feet up on carts with
wheels. Thank goodness I had so much breastfeeding experience or I really
might have freaked. They ended up giving the baby 40cc's of formula (I was
very depressed about that, but she WAS dehydrated). Within a few days the
swelling from fluid started to subside, but it took a long time to go away
completely. Soon I was back to my usual overactive letdown, choking-the-baby
style. It was quite a revelation to me that someone like myself could
actually have a problem in the first few days after birth with supply. All
because of the medical interventions of a C-section.
Please understand that there are many of us out there who would much rather
not have had ANY C-sections, who do not do it for convenience, "designer
births" (??)
etc. The goal of a pregnancy is to have a healthy child. I attempted a VBAC
with my second child and when that failed I was told that I could no longer
try to deliver vaginally. Could it have gone otherwise with me with
different health care providers? I don't think anyone will ever know the
answer to that question. Please do not think, as someone indicated in a
recent post, that those of us who have had C-sections "have less pain." It's
major abdominal surgery on top of childbirth. Less pain at the moment of
birth, yes. But what about the ensuing weeks and even months of healing?
I too regret the overuse of medical interventions during birth and would love
to have had my experiences go otherwise. It has been a great consolation to
me that if I "can't" have babies naturally, at least I can feed and nurture
then naturally for many years after birth. There was never ANY question in
my mind about breastfeeding after a C-section, as far as my own pain levels
were concerned. But yes, there were some complications in terms of milk
supply. All of my babies lost weight (much more than the 10%) after birth.
One was delivered at 36 1/2 weeks and did not suck correctly and we had to
pump and syringe feed him for a week until we trained him and/or he caught on
and then flourished. Then there is the story mentioned above. Please tred
carefully on the feelings of those of us who have unfortunately had a lot of
experience with surgical births. There ARE repercussions, and hearing things
like "C-sections are the *easy* way out only makes our regrets greater.
Betsy Koval
Lansing, MI
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