Breastfeeding conundrum

As you know, during my second hospital visit there was a very strong recommendation from both my consultant and breast care nurse that I ought to stop breastfeeding. The reasons for this were because they fully expected me to have to have chemo and/or hormone therapy, as well as the fact that breast feeding increases blood flow to the breasts and as such would make an operation more difficult for the surgeon, with a slight increase of risk for me due to increased blood loss.

I spoke to the DW Mafia, as well as my husband, at great length as I was utterly devastated that I might have to stop feeding. It's not like I wanted to feed a newborn - my son is two in October, but I wanted him to have the same opportunity to self wean that my daughter had. The consenus of opinion was that it perhaps would be better to stop - no one knew how sore I might be post op, and it might be kinder to my son to go cold turkey. Breast feeding for nearly 2 years is a great achievement, but I just didn't feel ready. The straw that broke the camel's back, and all that.

I also spoke to a lactation consultant who works for the Breast feeding Network and she advised that it would not be impossible for me to continue to feed from the other side, as the painkillers they offer post operatively are only paracetamol and ibuprofen - no more than post C Section. All breast feeding safe in other words. It would all depend on whether I had to have any further treatment, and of course if I was going to have to face a double mastectomy it would be a no-brainer anyway.

I rang my GP practice too, to find out whether there might be any drugs that I could take to dry up my supply as I did NOT want to end up with mastitis again. Apparently not are the drugs unfashionable these days.....they are also thought to increase the risk of getting cancer. This rather ruled them out.....

Rather despondently, I had pretty much decided to stop feeding but thought I'd wait to get my hospital date through before starting to wean.

During my third hospital visit the advice from my consultant et al was that it was now entirely up to me - the results were not what they had expected (yay me) so the choice was entirely mine. 

I was rather flummoxed but elated. Clearly, I had to stop on the right hand side, but I had nearly 3 weeks to do so. 

I'm quite a stubborn individual - tell me I "can't" do something, and it spurs me on to do it. Give me free rein and I become rather more indecisive.

In the end, I decided that I would feed on the left hand side for as long as possible - if I became too sore post op then I might re-asses, knowing that I had given it my best shot. 

I had 3 weeks to give up on the right side and I'll admit I didn't give up straight away. I waited until we had got my son into his newly decorated bedroom, then stopped offering the right side. Unfortunately I was in agony with engorgement after 36 hours, so had to let him feed again. Oddly though, I tried again, cold turkey with no expressing either, and it was fine.

Phew. 8 days in advance of the op, I was down to just one side, but still feeding. 

For those that think I'm nuts, if you go to www.kellymom.com you'll see that there are plenty of good reasons to breastfeed until two, and after. WHO advice is also to breast feed until two.  


The heart wants what the heart wants. It doesn't always make sense but I'm a strong believer in doing what feels right and this was it.