So It Begins

Breastfeeding has been one of the greatest challenges for me as a new mother. It began with an emergency c-section after 30 hours of labor. I stalled at 7 cm and after 4 hours, the doctor told me that a c-section would be the only way to bring my son into the world. My Little One (LO) was born at 2:12 am and weighed 8 pounds 5 ounces. As it was a c-section, that meant the immediate skin to skin contact that is so important was on hold until I was in recovery. My partner was able to hold our LO and held him close so that I could see him. Once I was stitched up and rolled out into recovery, I was able to hold my son, but still, not the way I would have liked. My blood pressure crashed and it would be another 2 hours before I could finally hold him close to me. We were very fortunate - the nurse assigned to us was also a Lactation Consultant (LC). Indeed, during the 3 days were were in the hospital recovering, we had 3 nurses who were LC's. My LO nursed very little while we were in the hospital. For the first 36 hours, he scarcely ate. One of the benefits of a natural birth is all the fluids and mucus is kind of squeezed out during the trip through the birth canal. My LO had mucus in his lungs and would cough it up only to swallow it again. As a result, he wasn't eating. Apparently this is very common. In the first 36 hours, he barely ate anything and lost 11% of his birth weight. So we began supplementing.