Have you tried to breastfeed?

[amysquie]

Hi all, my name's Amy and I'm a final year Midwifery student. We're doing a module on breastfeeding at the moment and I have chosen to do a presentation on women with diabetes and breastfeeding. There doesn't seem to be an awful lot of information out there! Anyway, as well as looking at research papers I thought it would be good to get a feel for people's experiences.

So: If you or anyone you know is diabetic and has had a baby:
~What are your experiences of breastfeeding?
~Do you think having diabetes makes much of a difference to the experience?
~Did you get extra advice on how to breastfeed as a diabetic (eg. what are good blodd sugar ranges and why)?
~Did you get any leaflets or other sources of info on the subject?
~How much help were midwives/doctors etc on the subject of breastfeeding with diabetes?
~If you gave up, was your diabetes possibly a factor in this and why?
~Why is breastfeeding important to you and your baby?

Many thanks for any help and answers you could give me! I'd love to know your thoughts.

Amy x

 

[brianb]

I tried to breastfeed once but my wife told me to stop it and act my age

Sorry could not resist.

Good luck with your study

Regards
Brian

 

[timo2]

i tried it but i felt a right tit. :roll:

bri - this is your fault, you broke ranks - we were all resisting it. :mrgreen:

she'll be able to publish a book of breast feeding gags to pay her way through college
if we keep this up. or maybe not :|

goodluck Amy.

 

[amysquie]

Well, not quite the response I was expecting, however, since I'm a dire public speaker I may use your jokes anyway if that's okay!! We get marks for 'engaging with the audience' which basically means I'm screwed! Another member has PM'd me with some links for what I'm looking for so this has been useful really.

Thanks for your replies anyway!

 

[sparkle73]

Can't remember what I was going to say on the subject now, after being distracted by the jokes lol...it's good to laugh.

right, ok. My son is now 5 months old. I wanted to breastfeed and i developed gestational diabetes in pregnancy,they also thought I was a type 2 diabetic going off my readings and symptoms, as my readings were apparently deranged.Anyway, I'm not type 2, just obviously had a bad case of gestational, that said, i did loose abit of weight through changing my diet, so that could be the reason.

I was told by my midwife that breastfeeding wouldn't be a problem. I was put on insulin when pregnant. The midwife actually encouraged me to breastfeed. Anyway, to cut along story short, I had an emergancy caesarian and my son was out into intensive care unit for 3 weeks, he hypoed and fitted at birth and he suffered some brain damage, so i could not breast feed him. I do though,express my breast milk for him for the first 3 weeks of his life until the stress of it all kicked in and then i could no longer do it. Once my son came home, I did try to breastfeed him but he wouldn't take to it.


~Do you think having diabetes makes much of a difference to the experience?

Had i still been on insulin, I would have thought that having to inject yourself as well as watch what you eat, exercise and demand breast feed would be too much to cope with.

~Did you get extra advice on how to breastfeed as a diabetic (eg. what are good blodd sugar ranges and why)?

No, just the odd normal leaflet on diabetes and breast feeding, not advice personally.

~Did you get any leaflets or other sources of info on the subject?

Claire

 

[amysquie]

Thanks for your story, sounds like you really went through the mill!! How is your son now? I hope he's doing well.

Amy x

 

[loopy-loo]

Hi Amy

Good Luck with your course!

I am a t1 diabetic and really wanted to breastfeed my second son (now 20mths old), I had an absolutely fantastic diabetes specialist midwife in hospital who was really supportive. I stayed in for over a week (didn't want to leave).

Initially, I had to express as he was in SCBU because of low blood glucose, which I found quite hard as all I had was a photo to try and get the 'let down reflex' (is that the right terminology - its been a while)

Once home however, I really struggled, community midwife was rubbish, had major hypos everytime I fed him, I was drinking oj by the gallon and eating so much toast just to try and keep my levels up. When my husand returned to work a week later I had to stop as I was just too concerned about hypos and being on my own, also with another child who was 7 at the time.

In a nutshell, info I received from the diabetes centre and the specialist midwife was great, but it all went **** up (pardon the pun!) :shock: when I got home. The community midwife didn't really know what to do and although the hospital midwife would phone me regularly to see how I was getting on it's not the same as first hand contact, so yes, diabetes was the main factor for me giving up.

hope that helps and wasn't too long winded.

lindsey

 

[sparkle73]

Thanks for your story, sounds like you really went through the mill!! How is your son now? I hope he's doing well.

Amy x

Hi yes, we did go through the mill. Didn't think he would survive but all's well now, thank god he's a lovely happy little boy. Although, he hasn't come through it unscathed but we thank our luckey stars that he's a happy little boy and that's all that matters he is disabled and a high risk of developing celebral palsy, so we are having ongoing support for him. The health issues are now with me although it looks like aspartame intake at the same time as gestational diabetes was too blame at the time.Something went wrong to stop my son moving and it was at that time i was having sugar free products, and not sugar that i would usually have in my diet. My liver readings have come down now since having stopped the aspartame and i am just waiting now for an xray. The liver specialist and my nurse are both looking into the situation along side a diabetic nurse that has warned her patients of sugar free products.

we were very lucky and have a lovely little boy.

 

[amysquie]

Hello everyone

Thank you for ALL your responses guys, they were really helpful. I did the presentation on Wednesday and it seemed to go well, hopefully my class took some of the info in and will at least be a bit better prepared to assist women like you to breastfeed in the future. I certainly know I will be!! I put your jokes into it and they made everybody laugh! Special thanks to Lindsey and sparkle73. I'm glad you both have happy little boys!!

Amy xx