I am currently pregnant with baby #4. It was not planned, a total surprise, one that I am still trying to overcome the shock of it all. Here is a short list of my history so you understand my question. My first born was born by c-section because my body stopped dilating at 7 cm. Labor began by my water breaking. With baby #2, I labored all day at home (contractions followed by water breaking). When I got to 9 cm, I developed cervical swelling because the urge to push was so undeniable that I could not stop so a c-section was my only option. Needless to say I was devastated because I had hoped to experience a natural birth. With baby #3, I had no choice but to schedule a c-section because my OB and the hospital refused VBAC's. With my first 2 children, I successfully breastfed. My first born self weaned at 19 months, my second child was 3 1/2 yrs old AND I was 2 months pregnant with child # 3 when I weaned my second one. When baby #3 was born by scheduled c-section, my milk came in, I had more than enough....but baby # 3 developed a weak suck which forced me to supplement with formula because he did not gain weight. I DID work with a lactation specialist when my milk supply began to diminish but my milk never came back after 2 months of round the clock pumping.
When I was released from the hospital with baby #3, he developed a mild case of jaundice. It was not serious, did not require medical attention but the nurse who signed my papers told me that babies with jaundice typically do not breastfeed well. Surprise, surprise, he did not breastfeed well at all. Initially his suck was very powerful, so much so that he bruised my nipples but my pain and misery over bruised nipples was nothing compared to the devastation I felt when I could not increase my milk. Again, since it was baby #3, I made peace with what I assume was never meant to be.
This pregnancy will be a scheduled c-section and I have tried researching the internet to see if there is a correlation between successful breastfeeding and the body going into natural labor. I just contacted my lactation specialist and she said that it would be better if I can deliver at 39 weeks but she sees no reason why I cannot successfully breastfeed if my body does not go into natural labor. I'd like to hear from women who have successfully breastfed AND had a scheduled c-section where they did not go into labor first. Thank you.
Wow, I am overjoyed with the amount of support all of you have provided. Since the the birth of my 3rd child was a planned c-section and our breastfeeding relationship was short lived, I was absolutely certain that the fact that he was born at 38 weeks via scheduled c-section was the reason he could not breastfeed well and I have been understandably concerned that this new pregnancy (which will be another planned c-section) would sabotage my hopes to breastfeed this new baby.
Unfortunately at the time of my third pregnancy, I had a pediatrician who did NOT support breastfeeding. She was nearly appalled that I was breastfeeding my then 3 1/2 year old while pregnant with the third child. Since I live on an island and doctors in my area are limited, I did not have a huge selection of ped to choose from but she has since left the area and I do have a much better pediatrician for when this new baby arrives.
Some of you suggested that my baby had nipple confusion while in the hospital. At no time ever was he given a bottle of anything after he was born. No pacifers were ever introduced as my first two children never had a paci either. I never bought them, never introduced them~ only wanted my babies to have ME. My husband was with the baby the entire time and I made it very clear that I would breastfeed immediately. There was a long delay in my ability to breastfeed due to a complication I had after my surgery. I was in post-op for 2 hours after my c-section and once I was brought back to my room, my spinal, which numbed me from my neck down, had taken HOURS to wear off which further complicated my ability to even hold my newborn right away. Five days after my son was born, because jaundice was something I had not experienced with my first two children, I did take my baby to the ped just for a check up. He still had not gained any weight since his birth and it was then that my ped offered formula, which I adamantly refused. I was bound and determined to breastfeed my baby which is why I contacted Le Leche League right away. The lady allowed me to meet at her home, and this was about 2 weeks or so after I had my son and she agreed that the latch was fine. Everything looked fine so she put me in touch with a lactation specialist who did indeed check my son's tongue (he was NOT tongue tied) but it was bruised which made her wonder if he injured his tongue in utero...something the ped and nurses did NOT catch while we were in the hospital. She also watched him latch on and agreed all looked fine and normal. She then watched him nurse and asked me to tell her when I felt my let down subside and it was then at that moment that she noticed something peculiar about the way he was sucking. At first he was aggressive but then once my let down subsided he wasn't as aggressive and honestly, I never thought that to be a problem since I had remembered my first two children nursing in a similar fashion. My lactation specialist used a gloved finger to feel how strong his suck was and it was then that he was "diagnosed" with a weak suck....and there wasn't anything I could do about it.
Some of you talked about pumping. I did pump. The lactation specialist put me on a schedule to pump (double electric, hospital grade) every 2 hours around the clock (yes, even setting my clock during the night) for 20 minutes. This became my way of life for the first 2 months of my life and it became overwhelmingly exhausting very fast. I did check in regularly with my consultant and when I told her that my milk had still not increased, she was dumbfounded. I took Blessed Thistle, Fenugreek, Mother's Milk Tea. The amount of pumping I was doing, in a 24 hour period gave me anywhere between 2-4 oz of milk. Not to be confused with 2-4 oz at each session. NO, I yielded 2-4 oz in a 24 hour period. Some sessions I was only able to produce less than ONE oz from both breasts. Because what I was producing was no where near what my baby required, I froze what I extracted from each day. My goal was to build up a good amount of milk in the freezer and begin swapping out the formula he was taking at the time so that my breasts would begin producing more milk so that I could finally get to a point where I could get him off the formula all together. It never happened. In fact, after 2 months of constant pumping, I finally decided to begin using some of the frozen supply, even it meant he only got one bottle of breastmilk a day, I defrosted enough for one feeding. It was this fateful day that I made an awful discovery: the milk was sour. I opened up several more bags of milk only to discover that every bag I opened was sour. I called my lactation specialist, practically sobbing on the phone and told her what I discovered. She explained to me that our breast milk has an enzyme called lipase and while it is tasteless fresh out of the breast, once the milk is chilled or frozen, if there is too much lipase present, it sours the milk. The only way I would have been able to get around the lipase problem was to flash boil/scald my milk. I was truly at my wits-end by this point, devastated and totally exhausted by this point, I threw in the towel, so to speak and abandoned pumping. I had concluded that with all I went through, I was sure that having my son born early by c-section was the cause of all of my problems with nursing him. I did nurse him before each bottle feeding, nursed him after a bottle feeding but he was never satisfied and I was confident with my breastfeeding skills given the history I had with my first two children. I had no doubts in my mind whatsoever that I could pull off breastfeeding my third child but it just seemed from the beginning that I was doomed to fail. And I do NOT want to fail this around with this new baby. This new baby was not planned, never even a fantasy. Our family was complete but for whatever is God's plan, He has allowed me to have "just one more" and I have to admit that I am hopeful that things will be different this time around. Maybe my situation with my third child was a fluke and perhaps it will not repeat itself. I certainly hope not because I am already fantasizing about that moment when I get to hold my baby and give her (or him) the very best of me I can offer.
Thank you all very much for your encouraging words and personal testimonies.
Hi, I had a scheduled c-section at 39 weeks. I had no problems with breastfeeding. I breastfed my daughter until she was 8 months old. I started a new job at that time so chose to stop breast feeding.
Forgot to add my daughter was also jaundiced.
I did! My first c-section was an emergency c-section. #2 was scheduled and I had no trouble breastfeeding. I am much better this time than last, and didn't go into labor. My milk seems to be all cream, I have about 500 oz in the freezer and my daughter is roly poly. C-sections will NOT affect breastfeeding, you will do great!
First thing that stands out is that the nurse said Jaundice babies do not breastfeed well which biggest load of **** I have ever heard. Talk about setting you up to fail!
Was baby #3 checked for tongue tie? Babies with a weak suck or ones that cause a great deal of pain to the mother when they nurse, tend to be tongue tied. And tongue tie often runs in families.
I have had both a natural birth (daughter) and an emergency c-section after hours of labor (son). I will say that my daughter was a much more vigorous nursling from the start because she had no meds in her system. My son was very sleepy, so I just let him lay on my breast till he showed interest. And I stayed that way - him in my arms with the boob out for the vast majority of my hospital stay. By doing that, it established my milk and his ability to latch well.
For you, I would see if they will allow skin-to-skin contact right in the OR and leave him / her there until they show a desire to suck. Nurse and let them smell your skin and lay on you ALOT in the hospital. Ditch all binkies, fingers and supplements. And MAKE SURE THEY CHECK WELL FOR TONGUE TIE!!! Anterior tongue tie is easy to catch and fix, posterior is much harder and BUT can be caught by a good lactation consultant and fixed.
If you need anything, please contact me or join up on the facebook group I run - Cape Cod Breastfeeding Moms. Great, great advice from over 100 LONG TERM nursing moms :)
Peace!
That was my situation with my 2nd child.
I had a scheduled c-section (which was scheduled 2 weeks prior to my due date)... AND my son breastfed just fine and I had milk right away.
After I came out of recovery from my surgery.... the Nurse brought my son to me right away to nurse. It was fine... I had milk, and my son was a pro nurser already. He had no problems nursing and had a huge appetite.
TELL your Doctor/Nurses..that you want to breastfeed and to bring your baby to you as soon as possible. That is what I did.
I had an emergency c-section with my 1st child as well, and had NO problems breastfeeding and had lots of milk already, and my daughter nursed well like a champ.
With my son, the scheduled c-section... he also had Jaundice while in the hospital and still once we brought him home... AND he had to be put under the "blue light" treatment at home.... 24 hours a day for 1 week... and I could only remove him from it for feedings, and I breastfed him... AND he did fine, nursed well and I had plenty milk.
all the best,
Susan
I had my 2nd child via a scheduled c-section and did not go into labor, and he has been a champion breastfeeder!!! He is currently 11 months old and doesn't seem the least bit interested in stopping any time soon. ;) He did a better job from the very beginning than my daughter, who was also born via c-section and was jaundiced. With my daughter, it took a longer time to really get into the groove of breastfeeding, but I nursed her for 21 months, so obviously it worked! :)
You can absolutely have a successful breastfeeding experience after a cesarean. And the nurse who told you jaundiced babies don't suckle well was extremely misinformed. In fact, breastmilk gets the bilirubin out of the body faster than formula!
I had an emergency cesarean and breastfed my daughter until she chose to stop at around 4.5 years old. I NEVER pumped much, if anything, and never had to supplement with formula (tho my parents snuck her some to undermine my choice to breastfeed). Just because your baby is always hungry and not immediately gaining a lot of weight does NOT mean you aren't able to produce enough. If nursing hurts... then the latch is not correct - period. Latching on and misinformation seems to be the worse things new Moms are up against - and both are very easily cured.
I fought for my right to breastfeed my child:
1st: Eventho I told hospital staff I was going to exclusively breastfeed - they fed her formula anyways, because I was so out of it from the drugs from the surgery. A baby's stomach for the first 2 weeks is no larger than a marble! Formula was unnecessary
2nd: My Mother didn't approve of breastfeeding because no one else could comfort and feed her like I could. It was a jealously and control issue - which I've seen is very common with husbands too. She would undermine me at any opportunity.
3rd: If I listened to my pediatrician, I would have felt like a failure because I couldn't PUMP much milk. Talking to an IBCLC down the road and doing my own major research on breastfeeding made me realize how ignorant our trusted medical professionals can be about breastfeeding.
4th: So many 'well meaning people' - including other Mothers - spreading and sharing very incorrect information probably sabotaged many breastfeeding relationships, but thankfully I knew to do my own research instead of blindly believing another's very limited personal point of view, experience or opinion.
I had a scheduled cs my first time. Not only did I have no labor, I never even had a mild contraction, dialation, , thinning, baby was never even remotely in position so she never dropped, not one thing to prepare my boy for the birth. BUT it still did. Everything after went perfectly.
I had no problems what so ever breastfeeding. Everything came in in the right amounts at the right times. She also had jaundice so we alternated with some formula to help get rid of it, as well as having her in just her diaper in the sun a little.
I think maybe in your case the only problem is maybe if they had done the formula with a bottle too much to treat the jaundice and he got nipple confusion?
I would not worry about being able to breastfeed because of your schedules cs. I will be going in for my second one monday and am completely prepared to breastfeed again! :)
I had to have a scheduled c-section due to the health of my back (had surgery shortly before conception); we had to schedule it early enough that I would NOT go into labor at all. I found that reminding my body that there was a hungry baby inside me and in ___ amount of days he would be hungry and I had the food. Non, scientific but the night before the c-section my colostrum (spelling) began to leak! My body was ready because I told it to be since I knew "labor" was not going to. But, yes we had some mild issues nothing we could not overcome. I found that pumping one breast while he fed on the other was quite successful for us from day one. If you believe in mantras and mind over body type stuff this might be helpful or you can agree that I am a whack job either way is fine by me.
Babies who are born by C-section retain their primitive (primary) reflexes and that is why they are sometimes unable to form good latches. Their central nervous systems are not wired up and the body actually remains that way unless the child undergoes a reflex integration program (INPP or Masgutova) retained reflexes cause lots of developmental issues, learning disabilities and such. The babies who are born c-section do not make their natural journey down the birth canal, head first, getting squeezed and switching on back/neck reflexes and such. It all has to do with sucking, motor skills, rolling, crawling, anxiety, sensory integration and more. Also look on youtube for "breastfeeding crawl." if the bay is C it won't be able to complete this journey which switches on bonding, vision and sucking.
My son was a c-section baby, and he breastfeed fine for 8 months. If you think positive and believe that everything will be fine with breastfeeding, it will. The power of thought is very powerful. :)
Hi, I'm not sure if me telling you my experience is going to help but i'll give it a go.. Baby 1 was born at 41weeks by emergancy c-section after 18hrs of labour, I stopped dialating at 7cms and his head was stuck so we had to rush in. anyway breastfeeding him was not easy.. to start with my mum had put her little finger in his mouth and we'd been told its a completly different suck, so i had to re-learn him, sadly it wasnt to be, so after blood blisters and cracked nipples because we couldnt get him to latch on, I gave in to the formula even though i had loads and loads of milk.
Baby 2 was born at 39 weeks because they measured him and said he was going to be a 10 - 11lb-er, he came out at 8lbs 5+half oz, so i kinda feel cheated out of natural birth. but breastfeeding was sort of better although he prefered one breast to the other and wouldnt really feed off the other, but my milk started drying out rather quickly..? was this due to not going into natural labour or was he not feeding enough on both breasts, due to feeding on one side more?? i dont know.
Baby 3 again born by c-section at 38+half weeks, i did have lots of milk but i couldnt get him latched on properly. See this is where my situation with milk etc may be different because i think my problem was with the latching on.. We just couldnt master it, so with baby 3 i gave in to formula at 17days, not very long, but i was in tears from pain, and i'm certain baby could feel my anxiety, because he would cry lots, when i gave him formula, he cried less, and fed loads!!
So I guess after writing this, and reading it back it may not have been helpful..but either way, you arent alone with the problem, so if you can get more help with baby 4, and good luck.. I hope things work out :)
Hi. All 3 of my kids were c-section and all 3 breastfed fine. With my 1st I was 40+ weeks, no contractions, no dilation..she wanted nothing to do with coming out on her own. I had some issues with my milk coming in (more related to 1st baby than anything else) but after a week it came in and all was fine. With my 2nd my Dr wouldn't even attempt VBAC so at 39 weeks she was delivered via c-section. Again I had no contractions what so ever. She had jaundice so after a week of breastfeeding I had to go 48 hours without to try and get her over the high hump. At the same time she was on a bili-blanket. My milk came in fine, I pumped for those 2 days and she took back to breastfeeding fine. I will say she was not as vigorous an eater as my 1st but not sure if was related to the jaundice or not. My 3rd was again a scheduled c-section at 39 weeks. I was having some contractions with him...but again once he was born, no issues with breastfeeding and he was a really good eater.
I hope this helps you some..
I had an emergency c-section, and did not go into labor. My son breastfed like a champ and I had no problems with milk production. Actually, I feel like we had a model breastfeeding experience. NO problems with latch, no infections, no clogged ducts, no mastitis, no cracked nipples, nothing. The only thing I would have changed is that my son self weaned at 8 months due to my milk supply diminishing at that point due to me having returned to work full time. This was my first experience with breastfeeding, so I wasn't pumping enough to keep my supply up. He was a big boy, and was hungry, I guess, so he was content to eat food and have formula. All in all, even though I would have liked to go longer, it ended up being a very simple end to breastfeeding. With my milk supply diminishing on it's own, I never even had engorgement or any trouble when we stopped.
So, from my experience, and from what I read from the other responders, it sounds like you can at least be optimistic that you can have a scheduled c-section, and no problems breastfeeding.
Best wishes to you.
I had two c-births. One after laboring for hours and hours and one that was scheduled. BFing after the scheduled non-labor c-birth went better for me. But was just as likely caused by the fact that this was my 2nd. Most things are easier the 2nd time around.
I had a scheduled c-section when I delivered my twins at 38 weeks. I successfully breastfed my babies until they were 15 months old, and we didn't use any formula (and, I worked full-time from 8 weeks on). So, yes, you can totally breastfeed without going into labor before delivering by c-section!
I have had three scheduled c-sections and have breastfed all my babies until they were at least 16 months! All three of my kids had trouble learning how to breastfeed, but I never gave up and successfully breastfed all three. I had to pump and feed them until they learned to nurse. If your baby has trouble latching see a lactation consultant right away. I had them visit me a couple of times before we even left the hospital. I had the attitude that not nursing was NOT an option, they all had to learn to nurse. It took a lot of work, but all three wound up being champion nursers!!
With my 1st I had an emergency c-section after 20+ hours of labor. I did not breastfeed 1st. My second was a planned c-section at 38 weeks. 2nd had a little jaundice and baby breastfeed well. 3rd baby was a planned c-section at 39 weeks and my water broke the night before surgery day. Baby 3 is two months old now; he had a lot of jaundice and has been breastfeeding great. With #2 my milk came in on the 2nd day but with #3 it didn't come in until 4th day. good luck
Cogratulatoins! A baby is a blessing! Lots of luck an success!
Jaundice is a codition when baby's blood type is different from their mom's. I was able to breastfeed my daughter less than two hours after her birth. No problems, she was exclusively breastfed baby for a very long time.
Take it from all the moms who have had c-sections, scheduled or not (I had three), that c-sections and breastfeeding are perfectly compatible and even with jaundice (my third had slight jaundice), babies can and should breastfeed as much as possible, even if it is from the bottle (my second had a cleft palate so I had to exclusively pump...not fun, but definitely doable).
I know surprises (my third was a surprise) are hard to work through emotionally, but once your little one gets here, you will forget about all of that and be incredibly in love with him/her just as you were with your first three!
I wish you the best of luck and congratulations!
