Friday, January 30, 2015

Tales from a Breastfeeding Mom

Here is a post from Baby Elle's mom. 
Sharing how breastfeeding significantly play an important role on her and her baby.
Enjoy!

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While I was pregnant with my first (in 5 years of waiting), the thought of feeding my little one with (purely) breastmilk never crossed my mind; not until the need of taking her out from my tummy at 7 months happened. (Though I’m not here to bash moms who formula fed, just want to share the journey :) )

We welcomed our baby @ 2 months early weighing just merely hitting 1 kilo (picture out how itsy bitsy and fragile our baby is). Then our Neonatal Pedia advised us to produce milk for this tiny peanut since this premature can only tolerate her mama’s milk.

With the dilemma we are facing, I scrammed (not literally though) to search on breastfeeding - the whats, whys and how on premature babies. Everyone in the family was clueless, she’s the first preemie from my side of the family.

While doing my own research and forcing my body to produce liquid gold, I came across – premature gut, NEC, Kangaroo care (and I still feel helpless and clueless). On the 3rd day after delivery, my body started to nature’s gift to babies and on the 6th day after birth my little nut is now ready to feed with my milk.

The journey was never easy, though she’s tolerating the gradual increase in feeding volume, her weight gain was minimal, NICU nurses mentioned on milk fortifiers (Uh..oh..!) BUT..  if I can produce more hind milk the better. So breastmilk pumping became frequent to extract the elusive hind milk (the fatty and milky white part) to give her extra fat and protein intake (whew! the hands became numb).

We graduated from NICU at 1,950 grams on her 2nd month.

The next challenge was, the actual breastfeeding - latching on and position was not a walk in the park. I learned sleeping while sitting (no worries, I got loads of pillows on the side).

As the maternity leave is about to end, I have equipped myself on the HOWs on pumping while at work.

Did you know that RA10028 exists? Nursing employees are granted additional break time to extract milk. Well, lucky me, I have a very supportive colleagues.

At present, this tiny one is now at 5,400 grams, that’s 5X her birth weight!
And that’s my superpower – I’m a milking machine!


7 comments:

  1. It's good to know that her breastfeeding journey is off to a good start! I, too, had supportive colleagues who went out of their way to accommodate my decision to breastfeed and pump milk at the office. They set up a room just for me!

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  2. Hooray!! Another fantastic gift (breast milk) from a super mom like you. I am sure you'll baby will grow up healthy and with love all around her.-Macy Santos

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  3. I breastfed my boys too, but had to stop when I went back to work. It was difficult to extract mik inbetween meetings or while stuck in traffic. I admire mamas who made breastfeeding an active decision and succeeded in so doing.

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  4. Yay to breastfeeding! I'm so glad she has a successful journey, and i didn't know about that law! I have recently weaned my 33-month old but I have nothing but good breastfeeding memories.

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  5. I used to breastfeed exclusively, too. It's good to know that what you're giving your daughter truly is the best. If not for the support of a couple of people, I would've stopped doing it kasi it gets to a point when it's too frustrating to follow through.

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  6. Breastfeeding is never an easy job. I had a hard time during the first few weeks, to the point i was crying since it really hurts. Glad my husband is very supportive. I'm breastfeeding up until today :)

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  7. Breastfeeding is really best for babies. I also had a hard start to it. But I'm grateful because of my hubby and fellow moms who really supported our breastfeeding journey, I successfully exclusively breastfed my son for 1 whole year. :)

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