Share your experience - Lorna's Story

I had always assumed would breastfeed if I had a baby. My mum had my brother, sister and me in the late 70s/early 80s, and was about the only person she knew who breastfed, but she was adamant that it was the right thing to do - even when midwives in the hospital tried to dissuade her, and actually fed my sister formula while my mum was asleep (she was livid when she found out!). Throughout my childhood, whenever we were out and there was someone breastfeeding, my parents would always say supportive things about it, so I had nothing but positive influences.


While I was pregnant, I read some books to familiarise myself with aspects of raising a baby including breastfeeding, but to be honest, I just assumed I would pop the baby on and it would work - I realise now from many friends' experiences that I was quite naive to assume it was always so easy. As it happens, I was one of the lucky ones, and although I had a difficult birth (long, induced labour, forceps delivery, losing a litre of blood and needing a blood transfusion), and my baby daughter didn't get to breastfeed until two hours after the birth as I was unwell, she latched on straight away when she was put to the breast, and from that point on, I had no troubles at all. I never had any pain, or any mastitis, or any of the problems I hear about, for which I'm hugely grateful! The only "problem" was a big oversupply, which meant I leaked profusely from the other breast, and also between feeds. Rachel was on the big side of normal when born (8 lbs 12), and fed what felt like the whole time, day and night, for the first few months, but I knew this was normal, so I didn't see it as a problem.

At around four months, I did notice my breasts didn't feel so full, and when I mentioned it to my GP, she said my milk was probably drying up! Fortunately, thanks to sites like yours, I knew this was nonsense, and just carried on as usual. I exclusively breastfed for 6 months, then did baby led weaning, until my daughter was 13 months. At that time, I'd been feeling extremely unwell for a few months - so nauseous that I couldn't eat - so I weaned my daughter then. I eventually found out, after much pestering GPs, that it was Coeliac disease, and once I started to feel a bit better, I did think about re-lactating, but I never did. I do regret that now, as I know she's missing out on so much, as am I.

That's my story, anyway. I had a great and very easy experience with breastfeeding, and while I know I'm lucky to have had no problems, I hope it shows that it can just be very easy and unproblematic!

Lorna.