Happy World Breastfeeding Week 2013!
This week, we will be celebrating by sharing real-life breastfeeding victories that you, our readers, shared with us! We were so thrilled to see all of the wonderful photos and heartwarming stories, and we cannot wait for you to read them all. Each day this week, we will be celebrating a different “category” all in the theme of “Breastfeeding Victories.” Any of you that have breastfed know that it is never a smooth-sailing ship, so each and every story is worth a celebration!
Today, we celebrate victory stories for mamas who have breastfed preemies! Our photo contest winner will be leading off our post…..
PHOTO CONTEST WINNER: Lora
Helping my preemie latch on .. Against the odds… He latched! Even though the drs and nurses just wanted me to pump & tube fed! He was a champ! We did it! He is still nursing, strong!
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Mandie
When I was 27 weeks pregnant with our third child I was diagnosed with severe preeclampsia and put on full bed rest in the hospital for 14 days before we decided to deliver our precious baby girl 11 weeks early. The intense physical battle of preeclampsia coupled with the incredible emotional battle of choosing to bring our baby into the world a full trimester early brought about more stress that I’ve ever felt in my life. We also had a three year old little girl and a two year old little boy at home whom I had been able to see twice over the course of my hospital stay. I’m grateful to say that I nursed our oldest girl for 15 months and our son for 21 months (he had very severe food allergies that necessitated exclusive nursing his first year of life). I had just quit nursing him a few months prior to delivering our sweet preemie. Thankfully, my breasts had ”been around the block” and knew exactly what to do once baby was born. Our little girl was delivered via C-section because she was high risk and breech and whisked away to the NICU where I was unable to see her until she was two days old (I was still on full bed rest due to the threat of seizure activity from the preeclampsia and was not allowed in the NICU until cleared by my high-risk OB). Our miracle girl was born at 29 weeks weighing 3 lbs, 8 oz and was 15 ins long.
Breastfeeding our babies is so important to me – to their health, to their comfort, to that special bond I share with them. Within an hour of my C-section I was pumping to send milk to the NICU. In the first few days of her life our preemie (fed through a nasal-gastric tube down her nose into her stomach) was eating a mere 1/4 tsp of my breast milk every three hours. Every. Drop. Counted. I knew that breast milk was even more important to her that our other children. I spent the next eight weeks pumping every three hours around the clock for thirty minutes – I spent four hours a day hooked up to my pump. I would go to the hospital and stay with the baby early in the morning or late at night after the kids went to bed. We had family and friends babysit our toddlers occasionally so I could go during the day as well. Everywhere I went, my pump went too. Though she was being fed exclusive breastmilk through her feeding tube, I feared that I would never be able to nurse her directly. Preemies have a hard time nursing in the beginning because they are unable to breathe, suck and swallow at the same time – it’s just too much to process.
Her doctor finally allowed me to try to nurse her when she was about ten days old. It was so scary! She was so tiny and would hold her breath while she nursed and often forget to start breathing again. She was unable to stay awake long enough to really feed well. She would get a full supplementation of breast milk through her feeding tube after each ”attempt” at nursing. It was so frustrating! I continued to pump around the clock and made every effort to be at the hospital as much as possible to offer her breast as frequently as I could (oftentimes this meant staying the night at the hospital and coming home to care for our other two toddlers in the morning). It was so important to me – I couldn’t give up. And then it happened. She was ”31 weeks, 2 days” old (they still referred to her by her gestational age until she passed her due date) which meant she was really about two weeks past birth and as usual, I was going to ”try” nursing her before she got her 9pm tube feeding. I say ”try” because up until that point she had pretty much just latched on and swallowed whatever breast milk pooled in her mouth. Not trying to down play any of that because that in and of itself is quite amazing considering she is a 31 week, 2 day old baby.
Our lactation consultant said that I should be over the moon excited that she was even showing any interest at all at this point and the fact that she consistently latched on was amazing. The few days prior to this I would let her latch on for as long as she showed interest – which had been about two or three minutes. That night I was going to hold her skin to skin after trying to nurse her (this was something I hadn’t tried before) so I stripped her down (just had a hat on her) and pulled a blanket around us in order to nurse. I had never tried nursing her skin to skin like that, but as soon as I offered her breast she opened her eyes wide and opened her mouth unprompted the widest I’ve ever seen! She latched right on and nursed for forty minutes!!! I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. She went from 0 to 60 just like that. She sucked and swallowed 1,584 times. Yes, I counted each and every swallow. We had fought so hard for that moment! 🙂 I couldn’t have been more thrilled. 🙂 We weighed her after she ate and she gained 10 grams. (That’s about 1/3 of an ounce). It was enough to make her 3 lbs, 13 oz. It just goes to show you how extremely tiny her mouth and throat was that she nursed for 40 minutes and was only able to swallow 1/3 of an ounce. Soon after that she began to nurse more and more frequently.
By the time she left the hospital at 6.5 weeks old she was taking full feedings at breast. Because I had been pumping around the clock (and had plenty of milk to go around) I had so much frozen breast milk I didn’t know what to do with it! In fact, the NICU had two upright full size freezers for all of the stored frozen breast milk for all of the babies to be kept in. Our baby had a full freezer full of my milk to herself! By the time she came home we had over 28 gallons of frozen breast milk stored in our deep freezer – it was the only thing in there and it was overflowing! I have been so blessed to be able to donate around 2000 ounces to a friend and her precious baby girl. I know that breastfeeding is hard and inconvenient and a struggle sometimes, but I know that our little girl is better for it and I am so blessed to say that we were able to overcome those obstacles we faced.
Our girl is now 20 weeks old and perfect in every way. She has remained healthy, she never received a blood transfusion or had any bleeding in the brain, her ears and eyes are both perfect – to her many doctors amazement. I am so blessed to call her mine. There is absolutely nothing in the world that beats seeing your nursing baby gaze into your eyes and give you a huge milky smile. I’d do it all over again in a heartbeat.
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Trisha
Taken via emergency C-Section Bradley, my first-born, was born 5 weeks early. At 35 weeks he weighed just 4 pounds 1 ounce. Tiny.
He was rushed off to the NICU before I could even see him. It was incredibly distressing. I remember laying in the recovery room crying because I just wanted to see my baby and know he was OK.Once they finally let me go up to the NICU to see him, I found that he was doing well with no problems found, but they would not allow him out of the incubator. The next day I was able to hold him, but the nurses wouldn’t allow me to breastfeed until later in the day when the doctor wrote it in the charts that they were to allow me.
Attempting to breastfeed in the NICU was one battle after the next. The nurses wouldn’t let me feed him despite his cries of hunger because they had him “on a schedule,” but when I had to leave during shift change they would feed him early. They gave me only 10 minutes to try to breastfeed and told me my time was up.
On day 4 I was discharged from the hospital, without my baby. That was when this picture was taken. It was a very distressing day for me. He had dropped to 3 pounds 15 ounces, and despite all tests coming back normal they wouldn’t discharge him until he reached 4 pounds.
I spent every waking moment at the hospital trying to use every 10 minute slot I could to breast feed my baby. In between, I used the hosptials pump. I was scared he wouldn’t learn to breastfeed though because of all of the bottles and pacifiers he was getting.
Day 7, at 4 pounds 2 ounces Bradley came home with me. At my mom’s suggestion, I simply stopped using bottles. Bradley picked up breastfeeding easily and we had a marvelous breastfeeding relationship for over a year.
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Jennifer
I wasn’t able to teach all three to breastfeed until they were 4 months old but I pumped around the clock for the 28-30 days they were each in the NICU…and then continued pumping for another 8 months. Now, at 21 months they are all three still breastfeeding!
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Wendi
My son was born on June 23rd of this year. My due date was July 29th. Not only was he born almost 6 weeks early, but half of my placenta died at 29 weeks. I was feeling very sharp pains and I had my husband rush me to the emergency room where moments later I was taken to get a emergency c section. I wasn’t able to see my son until almost 10 hours later, so I was unable to breast feed. Also the whole time he was in the hospital I couldn’t breast feed so I had to wait till I was home… We have been home now for four days and we are only feeding once a day, I can’t wait till I can be the one and only source of nutrition for my beautiful son. It’s going to be a wonderful feeling.
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Christine
My daughter was born when I was 30 weeks pregnant, in order to save us both I had to have an emergency C-Section. I had a severe case of HELLP Syndrome along with Preclampsia. My daughter was born weighing 2lbs 13oz and was rushed to the NICU where she stayed for 51 days! I knew from the moment I found out I was pregnant that I wanted to breastfeed. I was unaware of how much work actually goes into it. My milk came in before my daughter was even able to coordinate her breath/suck/swallow reflexes. Until she was able to have my breast milk I kept pumping every 3 hours and stocked my supply up at her NICU and in my home freezer. I was still not able to keep up with her slowly increasing milk intake. We were having to give her bottles of half – breast milk and half- NEOSURE formula. I kept this up until she was 4 months old!! I wanted to directly nurse her but she always had problems latching on so it became easier to just pump. (I was paranoid my tiny baby wouldn’t get enough to eat.) They way I looked at it was every little bit was that much better for my little miracle! She is now 18 months and is doing great! I’m pregnant with my second baby and I can’t wait to start my 2nd breastfeeding journey! I want to go to at least 6 months and I plan to not be exclusively having to pump!! Thank you for letting me share my story.
Thanks, Mamas, for sharing your stories! What’s YOUR breastfeeding preemies victory story?
Loved all of these stories. It’s always amazing to hear mommies and their babies overcoming the odds!