Lauren on Living

A Lifestyle Blog about Simplifying Healthy Living

For Your Viewing Pleasure // Embarrassed

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This beautiful spoken word by Hollie McNish, really hit home for me.  For the most part I have chosen to breastfeed sans nursing cover because I hate how this society has deemed that the only acceptable role for breasts is a sexual one.  Women dancing around topless and completely exposed in a Justin Timberlake music video: totally fine, but a mother feeding her child in public: shameful and disgusting.

This must change.  I’m all for modesty.  In fact I believe modesty is empowering, but with that said, I do not believe a mother breastfeeding her child is in any way immodest.  Breasts are meant to feed babies.  This is their primary purpose and function.  What’s truly disgusting is twisting them into something so over-sexualized that they basically reduce a woman to the summation of her parts.

Am I totally comfortable nursing Asher in public?  No, not at all, far from it.  But it comes down to the principle for me.  I want to take a stand.  My heart aches every time I hear a story of a mother being shamed for nursing, or asked to leave or to cover up.  I feel like it shouldn’t be something we need to think twice about, or worry about or debate.  So I choose to nurse my son without a cover with the hopes that one day this will become a none issue.  Breast is best after all.

For Your Reading Pleasure // The Secrets of Breast Milk

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Nicholas DayI am a huge advocate for breastfeeding.  THIS article by Nicholas Day touches on both how amazing breast milk is and how much of a mystery it is.  I know not everyone is able to breastfeed, which is why I am so deeply thankful that I over came my supply issues and thrush and have been able to nurse my son exclusively.  It is just so easy and convenient, not to mention cuddly!  I love it!

So read this.

Breastfeeding // Thrush

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When many people hear the word “thrush” they either think I’m referring to a bird or they have no idea what I’m talking about at all.  The term thrush is commonly used to refer to a yeast infection in the mouth.  It is fairly common in breastfed babies but it can also occur in the nipples and breasts of breastfeeding women and can be passed back and forth between the mother and child.  It is caused by an overgrowth of the candida fungus.  Candida is present in our bodies all the time, but it is normally kept in check by good bacteria that feed on it, however when this bacteria is compromised, say by taking antibiotics for example, it can lead to an overgrowth of yeast.  Yeast in the breast is much harder to get rid of than a vaginal yeast infections because the yeast thrive in sugar rich, dark, moist environments. Which brings me to my story.

Remember when I tore while pushing Asher out?  Well, as luck would have it, I developed a lovely infection.  At my two week postpartum checkup I was told that I had an infection, which meant two things.  First, some of my stitches didn’t take and second that I would need to go on antibiotics for 2 weeks.  Honestly, I was relieved because it meant that the excruciating pain I had been experiencing was in fact NOT par for the course and that with the use of the antibiotics relief was at last in sight.

HA!

I started to notice that breastfeeding was becoming INCREDIBLY painful and that Asher had developed a fuzzy white patch on his tongue.  So, I took him to the pediatrician and I went and saw a lactation consultant and we were told in both cases that we had thrush.  This seriously bummed me out, because I knew that thrush could be really difficult to get rid of.

I was put on a two week course of fluconazole and Asher was put on a nystatin rinse.  Well, after the two weeks were up, we still had thrush and our treatments had done little to improve the symptoms.  So, we were put on a second round of our respective treatments, along with strict instructions to sterilize everything that touched my breasts or his mouth. In addition, I was told that I should stop using a breast pump until the thrush was cleared up.  Luckily at this point my milk supply was established and stable so I was able to take a break from pumping.  I also rinsed my nipples with a solution of vinegar and water, cut out all sweets, exposed my bare breasts to sunlight (in doors) every day I could and we both went on probiotics all in an attempt to get rid of the nasty thrush.

Well, after all that and completing round two of our treatments, we still had thrush!  Luckily, Asher didn’t seem to mind at all, in fact I don’t think he even noticed.  I on the other hand was not a happy camper, seeing as that I was saddled with stinging nipples and shooting pains in my breasts.  Finally, our lactation consultant recommended that we try gentian violet.

Gentian violet

After going on a wild goose chase searching for the stuff, I was finally able to find some at a small independent pharmacy.  I applied it once a day to my nipples before nursing and that way we both got treated where we needed it most.  We used it for one week and once the purple wore off I noticed that Asher’s white patch was gone and my pain had subsided. Success!

Except within two weeks both symptoms had returned.  So, we did another week of gentian violet.  This time I applied it to my nipples before and after every feeding as well as directly to Asher’s tongue.  This no nonsense approach paid off.  After a long fought battle we had conquered our thrush, albeit, after staining many articles of clothing with bright purple splotches.

This and this are is a great resources for anyone considering using gentian violet to treat thrush.  I’ll warn you, it is incredibly messy, but it is well worth the relief.  I put olive oil around Asher’s mouth to try and cut down on the mess and this helped a lot.

*UPDATE* You can find gentian violet here but I was also told that you can find it at some Targets, although I didn’t see it on their online store.  Just make sure you look for a 1% solution, if you can only find a 2% solution that’s fine too but you will need to dilute it yourself.

Breastfeeding // How I Increased My Milk Supply

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Milk coma

Somehow during my insanely long labor (probably during the pushing phase) I lost a greater than average amount of blood.  It’s a bit of a mystery how or when this happened as there wasn’t any obvious hemorrhaging or anything, nonetheless, it happened.  As a result my blood pressure was super low, my pulse was incredibly high and I was very pale.  In fact the next morning my dad kept saying that I looked like I was part of the Cullen family.  That’s right, my Dad referenced Twilight.  Moving on.

Now apart from not being able to stand up and hearing the sound of rain every time I tried, I wasn’t all that affected by the blood lose, but since being able to be upright and conscious is really helpful when you have a newborn my Midwives gave me two blood transfusions.  After the first two transfusions they were still concerned with my blood pressure and thought I could have a third but since my symptoms were gone they felt the risk outweighed the benefits.  While all this was happening I was pretty delirious since I had literally not slept for 4 nights but I remember them mentioning that  the blood loss my delay my milk coming.

Well, delay it, it did.

When Asher had his first pediatrician’s appointment at 3 days old, he was already becoming dehydrated and lethargic, so she put him on a strict feeding schedule (of every two hours from start of feeding to start of feeding) and told me we needed to supplement with formula and that I needed to pump after I nursed to stimulate my milk to come in.

So it looked something like this:

Nurse on left breast: 20 minutes

Nurse on right breast: 20 minutes

Prepare and give Asher a bottle: 10-15 minutes

Pump: 20 minutes

This gave me approximately 45 minutes to sleep, before I had to wake Asher up to repeat the whole process all over again.  Needless to say, we were both exhausted.  The poor guy would be too tired to nurse, so I’d have to strip him down and place cold objects on his tummy and feet to keep him awake long enough to eat.  I don’t have to tell you that this was awful.  I was a basket case.  Luckily by the time he was 1 week old he had regained and surpassed his birth weight and my milk had come in so we received the all clear to feed on demand and he immediately started sleeping 4 hours straight at night, which felt like 10 hours to me.

For the next few weeks things were going really well milk supply wise.  We stopped supplementing with formula and I was able to exclusively breastfeed, which was a huge relief for me.  Then my mother in-law came to stay with us and very sweetly infused all my drinking water with mint, which I LOVED while I was pregnant, however for some reason I wasn’t really enjoying it anymore (which should have set off a flag in my mind).  I started to notice that my milk supply was decreasing and Asher was hungry ALL the time.  I couldn’t understand it, because nothing had changed in my diet or habits, other then the mint water.  So I did some research and discovered that peppermint and mint in large quantities will actually reduce your milk supply and are used by a lot of women when they are weaning their babies to help with engorgement.  So what did I do?  Well, I pumped.  A lot.

Milk production is all about supply and demand.  The more you nurse and pump the more signals will be sent that your breasts need to produce more milk.  It’s really quite simple.  I pumped for 10 minutes after every single time I breastfed.  This was especially hard during the middle of night feedings, but it was only 10 minutes so I forced myself to be disciplined about it AND I had thrush (more on that later).  If I could do it, so can you!  Very quickly I began noticing that my supply was increasing.  I allowed Asher to nurse for as long as he wanted to, to use my breasts as a pacifier and to fall asleep nursing.  Those 3 choices also helped increase my supply.  The key is to empty your breasts and then to continue to stimulate them for 10 minutes longer.  Babies are far better at stimulating your breasts than even the highest quality pump, so keep that in mind.

I also did 3 other things to help support my milk supply:

1.  I drank a TON of water.  I have a 20 ounce water bottle and I would drink a whole bottle or more every time I breastfed.

2.  I ate a lot.  This was hard, because all the water drinking was curbing my appetite, but I just had to stay on top of it.  The milk production cookies that my midwives recommended were a huge help in this regard.

3.  I took a lot of Fenugreek.  I was taking 4 pills, 3 times a day.  I reeked of maple syrup, but hey there are worse things to smell like.

I’m happy to report, after much hard work and effort we are exclusively breastfeeding and Asher is gaining weight like a champ!

So that’s what I did and that’s what worked for me.  If you’re having milk supply issues I recommend trying these steps but if they don’t work for you, leave me a comment or send me an email and we can trouble shoot together.

Happy nursing!