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The myths you mention in your first post, I think of them more as generalizations. For example, if most women breastfeed on cue, they make enough milk. But there are a number of women (and we don't know how many because the research hasn't been done) who cannot produce enough milk to fully nourish their baby. I think the study you mentioned in your OP was the study done in the USA where 15% of women in the study (who were well educated women and highly motivated to breastfeed), were unable to produce enough milk to fully nourish their infant. That 15% was made up of 10% women where the reason was known (for example, previous breast surgery) and ~5% were women where the reason was not known.
I want more research into low supply. We know that breastfeeding is the normal way to feed human babies, so why are we not doing more research into breastfeeding issues? It makes me angry that the medical community doesn't see it as important enough to do the research or fund the research, and our society isn't demanding it. How can we help moms with low supply if we don't know what causes it? How can we prevent it if there is no research into it? While 5%, if that represents the true number of women with low supply of unknown cause, may seem low, 5% of all mothers in North America is a lot of mothers and a lot of babies. Where is the foundation to raise money for research into breastfeeding?
And also "if the latch hurts you're not doing it right" - that one drives me crazy. Nice way to blame the mom! I also love to hear "but the latch looks fine" when mom is in pain. Some times it just hurts to breastfeed. But most often, if it hurts (not pinches or annoys or rubs, but hurts so you curl up your toes) then something is going on. I have seen so many tongue-ties ignored or not recognized that was the source of the pain. That pisses me off too - how can we as a society not have the skills to recognize and deal with something like tongue-tie that is so crucial to successful breastfeeding? If I was confident that tongue-ties were being appropriately diagnosed and dealt with then I'd be more comfortable telling moms that some tenderness/pain is normal at first. Because I'd know they didn't have an undiagnosed tongue-tie ripping up their nipples.
I feel for you, MegBoz. You aren't "most women" - your baby slept at the time when your prolactin was highest and your body needed to nurse more to make enough milk. You were given bad advice by your trusted health professional. And even here on MDC there are posters who have implied you just didn't work hard enough.
My little guy would have been a "happy to starve" baby too - he'd have nursed about 4 times a day if I had let him feed on demand. Fortunately I had oversupply and I had to wake him or convince him to nurse much more often to prevent engorgement.
I hope you feel empowered to tell health care professional that generalizations are just that - and there are moms who won't fall into those generalizations. We as a society need to support and encourage those moms, not blame or pity them.
6. Nipple pain is always due to a bad latch or some other “problem” or you are doing something “wrong.”
This dogmatic mantra made me BONKERS with my son. Absolutely bonkers. For one thing, my nipples cracked! I met with 4 different LCs & they parroted this. Then they’d say, “So let me check your latch.” They would check, then say, “It looks good.” I stood there just baffled… “Sooooo… what am I doing wrong because this is the same latch I’ve had all along?”
One of them actually said to me, I kid you not, “Oh, wait, YOU MOVED! Look, the latch slipped, you have to keep the latch good the whole time.” I suspected even at the time that she only said that because she had no idea & she wanted to say something but I ignored my instincts on that. I was in such pain, that I was desperate for an answer that could lead to a solution, so I started BFing with my whole body locked RIGID & ended up with lots of neck & shoulder pain as a result of her brilliant advice. Awesome.
No one had the sense to just say to me, “Of course you are in pain, your nipples are cracked! You’re doing well, keep at it, they will heal.”
Not only that, but pain at first is more common than not. Stop telling women they’re “DOING IT WRONG.”
This one almost ruined me for BF. I went round and round with my midwives, LC, and LLL group about this, they always insisted that it must be my latch, then would check my latch and say it was fine. I spent a ton of money on LC's and different pillows, tried everything, every position. It was finally my OB of all people who took one look at my breasts and said, "You have thrush." She put me on Dr. Newman's protocol, with three weeks of Diflucan and APNO cream, and both worked like a charm. It saved my breastfeeding relationship with my son, and he was exclusively breastfed, without a drop of formula, for two years. I endured three months of agony! I tell this story as often as possible, because IT'S NOT ALWAYS the evil doctors who are at fault. My OB saved me when nobody else would listen.
Thank God for this thread. Seriously. So true. Especially the part about low capacity breasts. You know how they say you can let your baby sleep as long as he needs to? No. Not me. I have to wake him up every 3 hours to nurse or I get plugged ducts and engorgement. I'm sure if I left it go, I'd wind up with low supply. So, when the pedi asked "is he sleeping through the night," I explained the situation. She tells me that my breasts would adjust if I just spaced it out more and more. How does that make sense??? It's not like I'm overproducing. I make "the right amount" not an ounce more or an ounce less. I just can't go very long between pumping or feeding. If my breast are "full" for 5 hours a day, I'll make less milk. What bothers me, though, is that I wouldn't know that if I wasn't going to a breastfeeding group -- if I listened to her, I'd now have supply problems. Oh, they'd adjust all right -- by reducing supply.
The whole "it shouldn't hurt if you're doing it right" is annoying too. It turned out that my pain was from doing it wrong, but I've met a lot of women for whom it was due to a hard suck and small mouth, etc. I agree, if it hurts you should look for reasons why, but telling everyone that it won't hurt if you do it right is a setup. How many women quit because they "just can't do it right"?
Anka
The nurses in the hospital were bugging me to nurse every 2-3 hours and getting antsy when it had been longer and saying they were worried about my supply and ultimately about baby's blood sugar. I could not get her to nurse that often! She wanted to sleep. (She was full term, normal weight, and generally healthy but a little bit jaundiced, which I understand can contribute to sleepiness.) She only wanted to nurse every 6 hours during the day for those first couple days. Yet when she was 3 days old, my milk came in, I got engorged, and pumped 7 oz off after feeding her and have had OS/OALD ever since. I still am not really sure what to think of this episode. Would some women in my scenario have ended up with supply issues? Are you supposed to follow baby's feeding cues even in the first couple of days, or are you supposed to try to stuff colostrum into them every 2-3 hours no matter what, even if they aren't interested?
The nurses in the hospital were bugging me to nurse every 2-3 hours and getting antsy when it had been longer and saying they were worried about my supply and ultimately about baby's blood sugar. I could not get her to nurse that often! She wanted to sleep. (She was full term, normal weight, and generally healthy but a little bit jaundiced, which I understand can contribute to sleepiness.) She only wanted to nurse every 6 hours during the day for those first couple days. Yet when she was 3 days old, my milk came in, I got engorged, and pumped 7 oz off after feeding her and have had OS/OALD ever since. I still am not really sure what to think of this episode. Would some women in my scenario have ended up with supply issues? Are you supposed to follow baby's feeding cues even in the first couple of days, or are you supposed to try to stuff colostrum into them every 2-3 hours no matter what, even if they aren't interested?
My ds ate every 4-5 hours as a brand spankin newborn. I was worried, but then I remembered that when I was hugely preggo, my breasts would leak all night - I think I just had LOTS of colostrum! I would wake up in the morning, and there would be a huge 5-6" diameter circle under my boobs in the morning, that was really thick too. So, I think my ds just got full and slept, and then would wake up to fill his belly again. I had a good supply - not too much, not too little.
Hmm, we did get plenty of meconium and wet diapers before we checked out. I think maybe they're required to have feedings charted every so often... but it definitely made my day challenging to have them pestering me, saying they'd need to check her blood sugar after 6 hours, I was trying to wake her and she wasn't waking--then after six hours, she opened her eyes, looked around, and was all "Hmm! It's a big interesting world! Hmm! There's a boob! I think I'll have dinner now." And I was all "See, I KNEW she'd eat when she was hungry! 
"
I had heard that low supply can come about if you don't nurse as much as possible during the first few weeks, and since I'm also a first-time mom I did the same thing you did of offering food all the time. Then again, I wonder if the moms who haven't done that and ended up with low supply might have had it anyway.
It's okay now though, I think. She's growing apace, and I am probably going to donate a bunch of milk, and I'm able to pump plenty at work and feed exclusively breastmilk despite the fact that I have just about the lousiest situation for pumping that I could have without not even being able to pump at all.
Quote in italics - my replies in bold. Some underlines added to emphasize original quote.
I think the 5% the OP is refering to is the estimate that 95% of women could breastfeed. That doesn't mean that 5% of women that try to breastfeed have unexplained low milk supply. The 5% are women with no breasts, women that have quads, women with cancer and have to have chemo, women with HIV in the US, a few other diseases in the US, extreme breast abnormalities, that kind of thing.
It seems like the OP had a lot of info and consulted LCs but somehow she misunderstood her problems.
1. She should have recognized there is a lot of conflicting information. MDs are not experts on breastfeeding. Want info on breastfeeding you go to breastfeeding experts.
Hm, not sure were you got that idea. I met with LCs - IBCLCs, to be exact. 4 of them with my DS, and another 3 with my DD. Yes, the MD told me to let my DD sleep, but otherwise every other myth I posted came from LCs.
2. Storage capacity usually isn't mentioned for smaller breastfed women because it isn't a big deal. Your breasts aren't storage containers for milk like bottles. There is only a small amount of milk stored even in large breasts.
Excuse me, but my daughter was starved (without me realizing it) for an entire month because of my low storage capacity. So I'm a little insulted by you sitting there saying, "Low storage capacity is not a big deal."
3. Again, who would listen to a doctor that tells them to let their baby sleep 8-10 hours a night when they have other sources of info explaining why this is not a good idea.
She was 3 mos old when she was sleeping 8-10 hours & I had other sources telling me this was fine as well - INCLUDING posters here on MDC.
4. How you tell if a baby is getting enough milk is weight gain. Breastfeeding books, classes, and LCs tell you that. You get scales and weigh your baby.
Hm, interesting. I've read a lot that says to look at wet & dirty diapers and other metrics - not JUST weight. Not only that, but I haven't come across recommendations to continue weighing babies on a weekly basis at 3 mos + of age.
6. Nipple pain is not always due to a bad latch. Books and web sites have lists of things that can cause nipple pain. Wet nursing pads were a problem for me. In the early weeks I couldn't wear bras because they pushed my nipples in. If I went bra free I was fine. If I wore a bra I had sore nipples that were bright red.
As evidenced by numerous other posters, this IS a common thing (Being told nipple pain= bad latch). The very fact that you deny this is, to me, evidence that you aren't in touch with what LCs commonly tell women.
7. Some babies nurse less frequently as they get older. Babies that love nursing don't. They many nurse 8 times a day when they are 2.
Of course every baby is different, but most sources WILL tell you that it is NORMAL and typical to EXPECT baby to BF less frequently as they age.
8. Many women don't understand breastfeeding on demand or on cue. They aren't that in tune with their baby. Women who breastfeed on cue at least 8-12 times a day should have a good supply. If you put your baby in swings, seats, cribs in other containers for much of the day you may have problems reading your baby's cues.
Wow, thanks for posting. You've done an excellent job of arguing my point for me! You are doing what the "crunchy" community, on the whole, all too often does which is to blame me for my problems and continue to parrot the myth that "if you do it right, it will work."
I guess I'm either a liar or a freak of nature then, huh? My DD co-slept, was put in her swing maybe 5 min every other day (literally) when I wanted to eat without holding her, and put in a stroller literally twice her entire first 6 mos (I was clothes shopping - can't try on clothes while babywearing.) Otherwise she was held or worn. I'm an extremely passionate baby-wearer.
9. Somehow breastfeeding advocates make women that don't breastfeed for a certain amount of time feel like failures. That gives breastfeeding advocates a lot of power. In the situation you are describing you are not in the 5% of women that can't breastfeed (remember the 5% isn't women with low supply). It sounds like you were still breastfeeding at 3-4 months. So you were in at least the 60% still breastfeeding at 3-4 months. There are things that you did that we can look back and we know are associated with low weight gain like letting the baby sleep 8-10 hours, not weighing the baby to make sure the baby was gaining 4 oz a week, not nursing 8-12 times a day, ect. When you knew your baby was having weight issues there were things you could do to increase your supply that you may not have done.
We need to take responsibility for our health behaviors. We can't let our 3 month old baby sleep 10 hours at night because the MD told us to and then say we had "unexplained" low milk supply. When a MD or any "expert" tells us something that doesn't make sense we need to do some fact checking. It is so easy now with the internet.
I'm still BFing today (DD is 7 mos), but I supplement, both with formula a little bit and a friend's milk who had a lot of excess & offered it to me.
I DID weigh the baby regularly the first 3 mos, but it was from 3 mos on that I did not weigh her again for a whole month's time. So you agree that babies, even at 3 mos, need to be weighed weekly? That's a new recommendation to me.
Where do you get that I did not nurse 8-12X per day? I nursed at least that, even with her sleeping long stretches. NEVER did I nurse less than 10 X a day.
Once I discovered weight-gain problems at 4 mos old, There is NOT ONE SINGLE THING I COULD HAVE DONE TO INCREASE MY SUPPLY THAT I DID NOT DO. Yes, I mean that to be 'yelling.' For someone to sit there & accuse me of failing to act angers me, I admit. The single only thing that can be done to increase supply that I did not do was medication (I did take herbs, just not drugs). (The excellent, highly-recommended IBCLC I met with said she didn't think that was necessary anyway.)
But, intellectually, I realize it is very silly of me to let your statements anger me. Clearly, you must deny my story. Clearly, as I said, you must believe I am lying or there is more to the story I haven't told. You must deny me because in order to believe me, you have to accept the reality that sometimes BFing doesn't work. It's easier to deny me than change your views, so go on & continue to "reject my reality & substitute your own." If you don't want your happy little world-view disturbed, why even come here?! Why click this thread? Oh, wait, so you can poke holes in my story and say, "She did X, Y, and Z wrong. See, I KNOW! I AM RIGHT! If only she did X, Y, and Z properly, things would have worked out. IT IS MEG'S FAULT - it must be Meg's fault, because BFing always works."
This may be stupid, but other than weight gain, why did OP think her baby wasn't getting enough. I didn't weigh my babes much at all (not even the first three months). They each grew at different rates. At their 4 month visit, they all weighed completely different. I would have been horrified if I had to be held to a 4 oz/day standard when other indications were fine. My first two weighed the exact same at birth (8 lb 2 oz). At four months, my oldest was about 14 pounds and my second was over 20 lbs! While 14 pounds is probably still "big enough", her gain between 2 months and 4 months was pretty small. But, then she gained more than usual between 4 and 6 months. At 1 year, baby #1 was 21 lbs and baby #2 was 32 lbs. #2 trimmed up in the second and third year of life even though I was still nursing her. I treated them both the same in regards to nursing. The oldest did have reflux issues and nursed more (I thought at the time that her frequent nursing was to make up for the frequent puking). Now, those two are 11 and 9. They are both slim and in shape. The oldest is still more 'petite' in body structure. But, just like with older children, I would think that babies have individual rates of growth.
Amy
This may be stupid, but other than weight gain, why did OP think her baby wasn't getting enough.
Hi Amy,
LOOONG story is here:
Basically, she was hanging on to the 5th percentile for weight through 3 mos, then 3-4 mos fell off the chart & gained only .33 oz per day over that month. To be fair, she gained a lot of length in that month, so she was still growing. Not only was she NOT showing signs of hunger (fussiness or lethargy), she was LESS fussy than before as she got over colic, but we felt that weight gain was inadequate. Even the excellent LC I met with agreed that she probably hadn't been getting enough. (my pedi didn't freak though, she just said to go see an LC to be sure, & check back again more frequently to keep an eye on it.)
Ahh... so let's add that to the list of myths, "Breast is always best for baby."
No, breast was NOT best for my baby from when she was 3-4 mos old because she wasn't getting enough! & we can all agree that an adequate amount of formula is superior to being BFed, but not getting enough to meet energy needs.
Worst of all is the fact that I had NO IDEA she wasn't getting enough - so I'm left always feeling worried that I was starving her during that time. Awesome.
LOL, but hey, just disregard me, because I'm a freak of nature, or a liar. I must have left my DD crying alone in her crib for hours on end, because if I had been adequately attentive to her needs, and had a strong attachment, this wouldn't happen, right?! (Or so say some in the crunchy community....)
Worst of all is the fact that I had NO IDEA she wasn't getting enough - so I'm left always feeling worried that I was starving her during that time. Awesome.
I know it's easier said than done, but try not to beat yourself up about this. The important point is that you figured out there was an issue, and worked hard to correct it! You've done all the right things, in my opinion.
LOL, but hey, just disregard me, because I'm a freak of nature, or a liar. I must have left my DD crying alone in her crib for hours on end, because if I had been adequately attentive to her needs, and had a strong attachment, this wouldn't happen, right?! (Or so say some in the crunchy community....)
No, no, no -- I am glad you prefaced that with LOL because I wasn't ever thinking ill of you. I was just curious; thank you for adding that link and info.
I find that I learn the most from the people whose experience wasn't "like the book" said it should be. If it all worked out like the book said, people really wouldn't need any help. I do know that I place emphasis on the # of people that have success vs the problems people can run into. I am not trying to make a mom feel bad; I want her to have positive thinking. At the same time if a mom IS having an issue, I try to make sure I am not brushing her concerns off, and finally (this admittedly took me a while) if a mom does choose to use formula because something wasn't working-- I no longer judge. Although, I still have a hard time with judgement when a mom just never bothers to try nursing at all. Especially, if it is because their SO won't share the boobies!
Amy
Totally agree about the nipple pain - I have big nipples and babies have had small mouths, latch is fine.
OP - low supply/storage capacity is a very real issue that some women struggle with. glad you are still nursing!
i have the opposite issue. - oversupply and OALD. Thank goodness DD is a little boobie monster, she keeps me from engorgement far better than DS did.
I think it's better to be honest. Then it's more likely women will work through it rather than thinking they are doing something wrong and give up.
