Wednesday, January 11, 2012

Milk Woes

When I had Anya, one of the parting statements that my OBGYN had for me at my postnatal check was "Not everyone are meant to be cows.". Apparently, I was one of those cow-not-meant-to-bes. I stopped breastfeeding Anya when she was three and half months old because by then, I was producing enough for one miserable feed a day despite taking motilium and fenugreek.

Fast forward to Arielle... Well, the situation improved initially.

Right from day one, I was taking motilium (prescribed by OBGYN) and fenugreek, 2 pills 3 times a day. On top of that, I latched Arielle on every two hours in the day and every three hours in the night for the first two weeks. In addition, the jamu massage lady who came in for a week during my confinement helped me to clear the milk ducts, making me feel all bruised in the course of it. Oh, and also, I drank gallons of soup and other fluids (Organic milk booster tea too!). With all these, my milk production was established and somewhat stabilised.

At every 3 hours interval, I was producing a modest amount of 80mls when baby was drinking 110mls at the same intervals. While baby was only breastfed partially, I was happy as five to six feeds (out of seven) a day was breastmilk. With such results, I was ready to breastfeed all the way. In fact, I just called the OBGYN's clinic a few days ago to ask for a prescription for two months' supple of motilium.

BUT. On Sunday, I was struck down with food poisoning. A relative bad case with diarrhea, vomiting and gastric attacks. So I had to be on medication. The gastric was hurting me so much that I could not get out of bed (A bad joke that The Husband and I shared was that I was going to have another baby). This translated to irregular milk pumping sessions in the past few days and having to throw away those precious stuff.

Now that I am almost fully recovered and am expressing milk regularly, I find that my milk supply has dwindled. Right now, I am trying to latch on again, in the hope of getting my supply back. Sigh.. Feeling all stressy.

1 comment:

Mum in the Making said...

Oh dear! Can imagine your stress! Last time my milk supply went down, I was sitting at the pump crying because I had to go out for research work and there was not enough milk... so I can understand. I'll pray for you... meanwhile, possible to go back on a high dose of fenugreek? I think you can go up to 3 capsules, 3 times a day (check kellymom for max dose)... Hang in there!