Breastfeeding Success Story: Mikayla from Darke County La Leche League

“My birth plan didn’t go as planned.

I wanted the least medicated, water birth, all natural, movie picture perfect birth. I wanted the uninterrupted skin to skin for a minimum of an hour. But Carter decided he was going to write his own birth plan.

I was 41 weeks pregnant and after 30 hours of labor with little to no progression it was time for an emergency c section. After rushing me to the OR and very quickly taking Carter out he was rushed to the intensive care nursery because his lungs and stomach were full of fluid, I didn’t get to hear my babies first cry.

They ended up having to drain his lungs and stomach, intubate him, and put an NG tube down his nose to help drain all of the fluid. He was in the nursery for about a day and a half, and during that day and a half I had to pump pump pump. Before he was allowed out of the nursery he had to take and keep down so many bottles, and I wasn’t producing enough to supply those bottles…so he got formula.

When he finally got out of the nursery we tried time after time to get him to latch with and without the nipple shield with no success. We tried using the SNS with no luck either. So we were discharged home and we were using pumped breast milk and supplementing with formula.

A few days later my milk finally came in and I was able to exclusively pump. It was five and a half weeks later that I finally got him to latch with a nipple shield. And here we are at almost 8 months and still using the nipple shield. There’s a lot of controversy going around about the nipple shield and long-term use, but it works for us!

I’m just glad to be able to give my baby the best that I can provide. None of that is picture perfect and none of it is ideal, but everything worked out and everyday he latches is a breastfeeding goal for us.”

Mikayla from Darke County La Leche League

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