Pregnancy

The postnatal care that I have received I've found very, very good. Initially, when I came out of the hospital there was, the midwife came in for 10 days after I came home and then we had a health visitor. Because I had had a section I couldn't drive for 6 weeks after the section, which meant that the health visitor arranged home visits. She would normally have you go to a surgery to see her. But she arranged home visits and has been of great support. We also have a postnatal group that's run locally and it's been a nice opportunity to meet with other mums and they cover various topics. They've done sort of sleeping and crying, they do a session on how to play with your baby, they do baby massage as well. They did something on choking and resuscitation, how to wean your baby on to solid food, which has, yeah, it's been very useful.

And who organises that?

It's, that session's been organised by the National Health Service and it's run at one of the medical centres locally.
 

Why did you decide to bottle-feed rather than breastfeed?

I did with both of my children because, I don't know, I think probably because of my mum. Probably because she bottle-fed all of us and I think you sort of tend to go for, for what your mum does, basically. If, because, because I do quite a lot of stuff for SureStart now, if I'd have known what I know, if I'd known then what I know now then I probably would have breastfed, but I didn't, so.

So at no point in the care you were receiving while you were pregnant from - were you seen by midwives while you were pregnant?

Yeah.

And did nobody ever give you, offer you any information about breastfeeding?

No, what they said was, the first interview that you get when you go in when you are, the 12 week, you know the 3 months and you get your first scan and you have all your bloods done and everything like that, that was the only, ever time anyone asked me, was I bottle or breastfeeding? And because I said, “Bottle,” she said, “Okay,” and that was it. Nobody ever asked me again, did I want to change my mind and breastfeed? Nothing.

If you reflect back now, I mean as you say, knowing what you know now, do you wish that somebody had sort of had a conversation with you and at least offered you the information?

Yeah, I do. I wish somebody had just sat down and given me the facts and the figures, and shown me that it's, it's easy. Because it didn't look easy and no-one ever explained it to me, so I just never did it, but I would now because I know a lot more information about it. I know the benefits of it which I didn't then, so no, nobody ever, as soon as I said, “I'll bottle-feed,” that was it.

Do you have a sense of why they just left it at that? I mean, do you think it was because they didn't want to pressure you or because they just were..?

I just think they couldn't be bothered. If said I would bottle, that was it. If you said you were breast, you'd probably got a lot more support. If I'd, I get the feeling that if I'd have said, “Oh, I'm going to breastfeed,” then they'd have given me the in depth information about it, but because I said I was going to bottle, that was the last time anyone ever mentioned it to me. And when I had my children the first thing they did was to come in and put bottles down on the table, so that was it, no-one ever spoke to me about it.

I think the advice that I would give to health experts - certainly I had absolutely no issue with my antenatal care and my postnatal care has been fabulous. The only problem really was immediately after I had my section in the hospital, my baby was born. The only advice that I would say is that if somebody wants to breastfeed, perhaps there should be somebody allocated, a special nurse, and that should be their only duty, should be encouraging mums or helping mums who want to breastfeed be able to achieve that. And certainly people who, it's their first baby, they don't know when to change nappies, they don't know how often to feed, you, it's your first time round, you've never been in this situation before. I think it's important that the health service, certainly, recognise that and give these people more support immediately after the birth of their first child.
 

I mean it's weird, though, because we were encouraged to breastfeed, and I wanted to breastfeed, which was fine - because they, they did ask me. They gave me the choice, you know, 'What would you like to do?' Once you've decided that you want to breastfeed, they will help you and support you all the way and really focus on that, which is great. But the, also the, they have, there's this pressure as well, all the time. You know, you're expressing, you go into the milking room, which is what I called it, with all these machines and, you know, you're expressing milk, and you're doing it in the night and, and then you're feeding him. And then you do the kangaroo care that you do, which is skin-to-skin contact and you're, you know, you're, you're changing his nappies. And it's such a long day for you, because you're doing all of that, plus you're expressing, and also you're trying to breastfeed as well. So it was absolutely shattering. And then the other thing is because we - well, because I was actually staying there most of the time, overnight, and we were quite a way from home, it was, you know, I had to make sure, 'Well, I have got some food in the fridge.' And there was only a microwave there, so you weren't actually eating properly either. And so if you're tired, you're not eating properly, surely those are the two main things that would affect your breastfeeding? And I thought that in my case that was the case, that because I was tired, stressed and I wasn't actually eating properly, I wasn't actually producing a lot of milk. And I just thought that I was going backwards rather than forwards. 

So I just thought, 'Well, I don't understand how I can establish breastfeeding if I'm not producing enough milk and I'm stressed.' So in the end, I think, it was because I burst into tears in the end because I, I just couldn't get him to breastfeed, because he was very little at that stage, that they actually took notice and thought, 'Oh, yes, well, she has been trying for nearly five, four and a half to five weeks, and she's got to the stage now where, it's got to the point where she, you know, she's so frustrated and stressed that it's affecting her ability to produce milk.' 

And I think it all sort of culminated in, in that sort of me bursting into tears and saying, 'Oh, I just want to go home', that they realized, 'Oh, well, actually, you know, perhaps we ought to say, well, change tack.' But up until that point, though, they were sort of, 'Oh, no, you must be doing this every three hours, you must be doing this every so often.' And they didn't sort of give any options, 'Oh, why don't you just relax and not think about it for a day?' or something. You know, they would say, 'Oh, go to the canteen and have a nice lunch', but that was about it.
 

Did you breastfeed?

I didn't breastfeed, no. I did try, time after time to begin with. Sometimes the milk doesn't kick in when you've had an elective caesarean because you've had no natural labour, so by the time my milk came in I think was day, I can't remember now, I think it was day three, by which time I had a starving child who was guzzling six bottles a day, and once you've started on the bottle, it's very, very difficult to go backwards. However, my baby had expressed milk once a day.

Did they tell you before the elective caesarean that that might be an issue for breastfeeding?

I was not given any information about that on the possibilities of not producing enough milk having had an elective caesarean beforehand. On the other hand, I know it can happen to some people who give birth through natural labour, that the milk doesn't always come through very quickly.

How did you feel about the fact that you weren't able to breastfeed?

I was fine about the fact I couldn't breastfeed. I had a happy child, she was eating, she was getting my milk once a day. That was all that was being produced, but she was getting what she needed. She was getting the hind milk and fore milk so that wasn't a problem to me and I continued that for, I think, six to eight weeks before she went onto formula solidly and we had no problems at all.