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Client Testimonial
Talila has given us her permission to share her story about how Sylvia Boyd’s expertise was instrumental in helping her baby to successfully latch. We hope this will help give you an idea of the kind of help you can get, too! |
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Netah and Mom in Yosemite, nursing away |
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At home, things took a turn for the worse. Without the nurses’ help, Netah either wasn’t latching on at all, or she would bite down on me hungrily, getting blood instead of milk (which was still plentiful). The tube alongside the nipple didn’t work well from the start, and at home I couldn’t get it to work at all. Netah was sleeping most of the time and when she wasn’t, she was very alert and quiet, constantly moving her head in a futile search, a sign that, I later learned, was an indication of dehydration. My husband and I were clueless and desperate. We realized that without professional help, we’d have to give Netah the bottle. On our second day at home, when she went several hours without wet diapers, we realized that it can’t keep on hoping that Netah will eventually pick up suckling on her own.
We called Sylvia Boyd, a lactation consultant. Immediately she set us up with a rental breast pump and a supplement system that involved breastmilk being supplied from a large syringe through a tube that run along a parent’s finger into the baby’s mouth. This system worked much better than the nipple tube, as it was much easier to place it and keep it in the baby’s mouth. The advantage of this system over the bottle is the suckling technique, which is similar to the breastfeeding technique and has less chance of confusing the baby. It was just in time – Netah had already lost more than the normal 10% of her birth weight.
Already in the hospital I realized there was a problem. My daughter, Netah, was very sleepy in the first couple of days and had to be wakened to be fed. Her attempts to suckle were very forceful and painful (my nipples cracked and bled, too), but she wouldn't get much and would stop attempting and start crying instead. Milk supply was not a problem – I had plenty and it leaked freely whenever Netah was next to me. In fact, in frustration I used to express the milk by hand directly into my daughter’s mouth, trying to give her something. Needless to say, I did a lot of crying together with my poor baby. It didn't help my state of mind that my roommate had her baby nurse without any problems whatsoever from the moment of birth. I thought I was doing such a bad job as a mother!
While in the hospital, I had my baby room-in with me and whenever it was time for feeding, I called for a nurse to help me out. The nurses were a great help and it seemed from time to time that my baby was ‘getting it’ and suckling after all. She still wasn't wetting enough diapers, however, and the nurses told me I had to supplement her with a bottle. Here was my dilemma: my baby wasn't getting enough, yet I feared that once I start giving her the bottle then I'll never get breastfeeding to work successfully.
One of the nurses suggested that I supplement through a tube along the nipple. The idea wasn't very convenient but it seemed to work. The first time I used it, my baby got a few cc’s of formula given to me by the nurse who helped me with the tube. After that, I insisted that any following supplement would be with my own milk, so I used the hospital breast pump to express milk to supplement through the tube. All that time I insisted that Netah not be fed with a bottle. One of the reasons why Netah couldn’t latch on was because she was frequently twisting her head to the left and had difficulty to align her mouth with the nipple. When Sylvia inspected Netah, she could tell that the baby was very tense, with tight lips and a tongue that was not moving forward. Then she suggested CranioSacral Therapy to help Netah relax.
The struggle to get Netah breastfeeding took about three weeks, during which Netah had three CranioSacral Therapy sessions, two with Dave Harnage in Hayward and one with Dusa in San Francisco. I kept putting Netah to my breast as often as possible. I took Sylvia’s advice to be skin-to-skin with her (we co-sleep together). I cried each time when Netah would take a full meal through the tube right after she’d been an hour on the breast, but loved to see her filling up and gaining weight.
After each therapy session, I could see Netah was more relaxed and she struggled less and less at the breast. Her lips and tongue loosened up and she wasn’t hurting me anymore. After the last therapy session, we decided to stop the tube supplement. It seemed like Netah wouldn’t have enough – she was at the breast nearly constantly. I was so exhausted that I nearly collapsed, but after two days of marathon breastfeeding, things eased and Netah settled into an easier routine and never required supplement since.
Now, at 11 weeks, Netah has had only my milk and has doubled her birth weight. She likes to be at the breast not just to eat but also to relax and to lull herself to sleep. At nights, she often doesn’t even wake up – she latches on, feeds, and returns to sleep without opening her eyes once and resumes deep sleep after 10 minutes. The only problem we have now is that she loves the breast so much that she’s unwilling to receive a bottle (with my milk) from her father, which makes it difficult for me to leave her with him for more than three hours, and makes him feel rejected.
I’m glad I insisted on breastfeeding. Not only is it the best nutrition for my baby, but it is also a special time of bonding for us. There’s no description for the feeling I have when Netah gazes at me during feeding. I can’t imagine where we would be now without Sylvia’s help – her experience, encouragement, and the therapy sessions. Now Netah is a healthy and happy baby. I couldn’t have asked for more. — Talila |
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When I was pregnant I went to a breastfeeding class. I already knew that as natural as breastfeeding is, it’s not always intuitive. I remember witnessing the pains of my sister’s struggle to nurse her baby. I also remember my mother’s story of how she weaned both me and my sister from the breast after only a few weeks because we were biting until she bled. I thought it would be useful to learn the ‘tricks’ before the birth. I thought that if I knew the right ‘moves’ then everything would be OK. I didn't expect that my baby wouldn't know her part – I was sure that all babies are born knowing how to suckle. Well, my daughter didn't. She couldn't latch on properly and, needless to say, was constantly hungry her first few days.
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Baby Netah |
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Talila's First Birth Experience |
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copyright © 2010 Sylvia Boyd. — Updated Aug. 16, 2010 To contact the Webmaster click: Nugent Web Solutions
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