Posts Tagged ‘Surgery’

For Women in My Situation, Part II

Posted in Whatever Wednesday on 07/01/2009 04:01 pm by lori

Here’s another post that you men don’t wanna read.

Ladies, remember this post about Reduction Mammoplasty.  I got several emails from women, asking for more information.  So, here’s what I was asked and some information given, in no particular order. . .

Question: My reduction was 10 years ago.  Can I nurse?
Answer: Typically, the longer it’s been since your surgery, the better.  It gives some of the ducts that were damaged by the surgery more time to reconnect, known as “recanalization.”  But I had my BR 2 years and 3 months before I nursed Abigail.

Question: What did you struggle with?
Answer: Here are some things that were a struggle to me, which may have been due to the BR (some of these things, non BFAR women deal with, and some BFAR women don’t deal with them):

  • It really really hurt me for the first 5-6 weeks.  I cried when Abigail nursed.  We think due to nipple blanching and maybe because of the scar tissue sensitivity.
  • I was horribly engorged, which was very painful, for the first few days.  This was probably due to some milk ducts being cut and therefore clogged, so the milk didn’t have anywhere to go.

Comment: I’m afraid it will hurt, and I won’t be able to do it.
Response: I understand your feelings.  But you can do it!!  And it might hurt, but it’s totally worth it!  I just made weekly goals here and there.  Like in the beginning, I was said, “I just wanna make it to two weeks.” Once I got to that point, I said, “I just wanna make it 6 weeks.”  Once I got to that point, it didn’t hurt, and I said, “I hope I have enough milk to 6 months.”  And then, I said, “I wanna make it a year like the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends.”  After the first 6 weeks, there were times it did hurt, but for the 95% of the time, I couldn’t even tell she was nursing.

Question: How will I know if I can nurse?
Answer: I guess you won’t really know until your milk comes in after your baby is born.  But a good sign that you’ll be able to nurse well (at least for me) is leaking colostrum (pre milk) while you’re pregnant.  I started leaking at about 30 weeks.

Question: When you breastfeed, you don’t have a period?  Is this true?
Answer: This is correct for many women: no period!!  Yea!  I did not have one until Abigail was 13 months old.  Prolactin is a hormone released during breastfeeding, and when you have high levels of Prolactin, it  suppress the period.  But, this doesn’t mean you can’t get pregnant while nursing, without a period.  It happens.

Question: What if I don’t make much milk?
Answer: A lot of the women who don’t have full supplies use an at breast supplementer (SNS or Lact-aid).  It’s a system that has a pouch full of formula or expressed breast milk that has tubes that connect to your nipples, so the baby drinks from it and boob.  I don’t know about it because I’ve never had to use it, but many women on BFAR can give you information about it.

Question:Are there ways to increase your milk supply?
Answer: Oh yeah.  In the beginning, I took fenugreek (an herb that increases milk production).  I didn’t notice a difference, so I stopped taking it, but it does work for many women.  There are many many teas, mother’s milk, herbs, etc that you can take to increase your production.  Even eating oatmeal can help.  There’s also two prescription drugs: Reglan (known to cause depression in most of the cases, so I didn’t take it) and Domperidone.  I started taking Domperidone when my daughter was about 8-10 months (I can’t remember when).  Domperidone is the most effective.  It’s pretty expensive because insurance doesn’t cover it.

Question: I haven’t had the surgery, but I want to.  Can you tell me a little about it?
Answer: Here’s a website I frequented when I was getting the reduction done. I had my surgery done Dec 16, 2005 (I was almost 22), and I had to be back in school on Jan. 9.  I could carry a backpack, but I remember being a little sore.  It is a long recovery time. The surgery lasts about 2 hours, if I remember correctly.  I can’t remember when I started feeling pain– if it was the surgery day or the next.  But, it is pretty painful and HYPER sensitive, an awkward feeling.  My husband washed and dried my hair for awhile.  He helped me up every morning.  He slept in another bed for the first week or so– because of all the moving.  You have to sleep on your back for a long time.

Other Advice about BFAR
I think my success was due to TONS of prayer, education on BFAR (researching, calling the surgeons office, reading books and forums), and working so hard.  I started pumping in the hospital, and I breastfed my daughter every two and a half hours– regardless of if she acted hungry or not.  I never let her have a pacifier or bottle in the hospital or for the first several weeks.  To get her extra breast milk, we would spoon feed her– very awkward, but I was so afraid of her getting nipple confusion.  I pumped with a Medela Pump in Style (electric double pump) after almost every feeding in the beginning, and then moved back to 4 times a day.  Even up until started weaning Abigail, I still would pump after her morning feeding.

My biggest advice (besides to pray about it all the time) is to join bfar.org.  Once you’re there, click on “Forums” heading.  Then, fill out the information; it’s free.  Once you’re a member, “introduce” yourself in a post.  Many women will welcome you and offer their tips, as well.  After that, you’re welcome to post any questions any time.  People are really good about responding promptly.

Also, make time to read Defining your Own Success: Breastfeeding after Breast Reduction Surgery before you have the baby.  I learned soooo much from that book.  If you have a Barnes and Noble near you, call them to see if they have the book in stock.  Otherwise, you could order from here.

Also, I had GREAT lactation consultants at the hospital.  I’d encourage you to call at your hospital to see if you can talk with one of the women– seeing if they have experience with helping bfar women.  You can do before and after weight checks to see how much baby is drinking.

Best of luck to you all!  Let me know if you have any comments or more questions, and I’ll get back to you through email.

**Go here to enter the YoBaby giveaway.**

For Women in My Situation, pt I

Posted in Whatever Wednesday on 04/22/2009 01:00 am by lori

Welcome, Carnival of Breastfeeding readers!  This post has been re-published.

This post is for women, so dudes, look away.  If you (a male) keep reading, you might feel awkward.  So, you can’t say I didn’t warn you.

Anyway, this has been something that has been on my mind for a long time.  I have debated about whether or not to broadcast it to the Internet.  But I have decided that when I was first dealing with this, I desperately wanted support and to be able to find answers on the Internet.  So, here you go. . .

In December of 2005, I had a reduction mammoplasty, aka breast reduction  (or as my husband coined it “O.B.C.- Operation Booby Cut).  When I started having pre-op consultations as a teenager, the doctors told me the chances of breastfeeding could be 50/50.  And now that I’m looking back on it now, they probably didn’t even know because they don’t keep up with their patients after the six month post op appointment.  Anyway, at the time, I didn’t care whether or not I’d be able to nurse because I just wanted to be done with the physical pain and embarrassment and be able to play sports again (although none of these occurred because the doctor didn’t take out enough. . . but that’s a completely different story).

When I got pregnant in 2007, I knew I wanted to nurse.  I had done extensive research on nursing and knew it would be by far the best thing I could give my child.  All the doctors (OB, Pedi, and Family Docs) I talked to said I probably wouldn’t be able to nurse– that their patients weren’t.  Even a lactation consultant (who I absolutely adore!) says she can count on one hand women who have been successful with bfaring.  There’s actually one from the hospital who’s successful now (Hi, L.).

So, I started searching online for some information about breastfeeding after you’ve had a reduction.  There wasn’t much to be found.  But I seriously thank God everyday that I found this website: www.bfar.org.  BFAR = Breastfeeding after Reduction.

If you read my blog, you know how I hate to spend money, so when I saw that this book, written by the creator of the above website) cost $25-$40, I almost didn’t buy it.  I’m a bargain shopper, so luckily I found it for about half that price (I can’t find the link now, but if you need/want this book, let me know, and I’ll try to find it for you for cheap).  Best thing I ever did (well, one of them.)!  It’s 328 pages about breastfeeding after breast reduction surgery– compared to the 1-2 pages I could find in other breastfeeding books.

Even after reading it, I didn’t think I’d be able to exclusively breastfeed because I don’t think any of the personal stories in the book were able to do so (but, they’re doing awesome things for their babies).  Well, I praise God that I am able to.  And I’m not saying this has been easy.  It most certainly has been a very difficult process, which I’d be happy to share with you if you contact me.

Anyway, I decided to write this post because a lady in my breastfeeding support group from the hospital came up to me and said, “You’re my inspiration.  Every time things are hard with nursing, I think of the lady from class who had the reduction and is still persevering, so I know I can, too.”  Wow!  Totally made my day.  And I thought if I could help a non BFAR woman, then, I for sure wanted to help a future BFAR momma.

If I get much feedback from this post, I’ll do a follow up one.  And feel free to leave a comment with any questions or simply your email address if you’d like more information about bfaring.

See Part II here.

4/22