My Breastfeeding Journey - Nipple Shields to the Rescue

Nov 10

By Bron Celine

For me, breastfeeding was the hardest part of becoming a mom. I wasn’t prepared for it at all. All the books I read and all the videos I watched made it seem like this blissful bonding experience for mom and baby. Until my turn came, and it just wasn’t at all.

I went into labor at 38 weeks and had a pretty good natural physiological birth. My son came out at a healthy 4.2kgs, but after a long labor of 21 hours and getting stuck in the birth canal, his desire to latch was all but zero.

After countless nurses attempting to “milk” me and my son refusing to feed me, the nurses gave him formula, which I was okay with. But deep down, his refusal was like daggers for me. Even after two in-hospital visits from a lactation consultant, I still struggled. To make matters worse, we were discharged with a warning: I’d better get my baby feeding, or I’d dehydrate him and send him straight to the NICU. Not a nice parting gift for a new mom who had no idea what she was doing.

After a harrowing first night at home and having to resort to more formula, I called another lactation consultant, who arrived at my house a few hours later. She pointed to the pair of nipple shields on the table beside my feeding chair and asked if I’d tried them yet. I’d said no because the midwife from my antenatal classes had told me how bad they were. So I didn’t know who to believe!

After using a nipple shield and my son successfully latching, I felt a glimmer of hope that we could do this whole breastfeeding thing. However, I felt guilty that I needed help from a nipple shield to do something my son should have done naturally. It was tough to keep at it, especially when my midwife tried to talk me out of them at every single weigh-in (I ended up leaving her because of this). Still, eventually, after two months, my son decided he didn’t need the shields, and I was able to feed him for four and a half months total. This was a massive win for a mom who thought she’d never make it through the first week.

My mantra for breastfeeding: do whatever works for you, and don’t worry about what others will say about it. I stuck to my guns (and nipple shields) and could breastfeed for far longer than I ever would have been without them!