Today was one of those lovely meetings that I will never forget. Collete and 4 month old Charlie came back to see me. It had been exactly three months. Many emails, visits to the doctor, rounds of antibiotics and a trip to the hospital and Collete kept breastfeeding.
Collete encountered just about every breastfeeding problem one can imagine— damaged nipples, severe pain, plugged ducts, mastitis, antibiotics for mastitis, mastitis again, abscess, drop in milk production, baby not breastfeeding, she not being able to breastfeed because of the damaged nipples, loved ones suggesting she just give formula. But stubborn, tenacious Collete hung on. "How did you do it?" I asked.
"There was only one way that I survived", she said— "I took one day at a time and kept the milk flowing." She would never have dreamed four months ago that she would go through such a journey with breastfeeding. Nor can she imagine that she would have hung in there knowing what this journey was going to entail. But here she is still going strong. Charlie hasn't breastfed since he was six weeks old. She has pumped religiously and not only does she produce all the milk 16 pound Charlie drinks, she freezes 10-13 extra ounces every day. "Amazing, you are an a amazing woman," I kept saying to her.
A funny thing happened while on this journey; she found she was so thirsty while on the antibiotics that she needed to drink about 200 ounces of water every day. Much to her amazement this amount of water consumption increased her milk production to around 50 ounces a day. She decided to drop her nighttime pumping and is only pumping four times daily. Now she pumps 43-46 ounces a day. "Oh well," she said, "Charlie only drinks 31-37 ounces per day.
The purpose of today's visit was to start directly breastfeeding again. Now a four month old has a mind of his own and it is not always easy to convince a baby this age that breastfeeding works. Collete in her patient and gentle way tried several ways to lure him into breastfeeding. Some things worked briefly, but what worked for the longest amount of time was having Charlie on his back, Collete leaning over him. He licked and played and started drinking. He stopped and cried; Collete started singing:
Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes
Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes
Eyes and ears and mouth and nose
Head, shoulders, knees and toes, knees and toes
He nursed while she sang and stopped every time she stopped. Once she changed the order of the song and he cried. He is one smart baby. Well Collete and Charlie will continue to work out their breastfeeding relationship, one day at a time. But she shouts it from the roof top to all mothers struggling with breastfeeding:
If you are having problems,
Stop, pump and
Keep the milk flowing!
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