Breastfeeding yay no has not been easy this time actually this time is been really really hard i’m on baby number four and so you would think that after breastfeeding a couple times around that you’ve worked out all of the kinks but this time has been completely different i have been so frustrated this time around and i mean just i want to keep breastfeeding but
It’s been a struggle so i i nursed my other babies and i exclusively breastfed i never pumped extra bottles out or anything like that and i was pretty much a stay-at-home mom with them except for a couple hours here and there that i’d go to work nothing big part-time simple this time around has been different since we’ve had our last baby and then this baby it’s
Almost a nine year age gap and uh i went to nursing school in that time and i’m a nurse now we were we work a lot of hours and long hours really long hours so you know my my days by the time you hit tuesday or wednesday sometimes i’m already into overtime versus working five or six days a week we have a lot of hours that we put in and i work nights and that makes it
Even ten times worse because i’m a day person i know that there’s stuff going on during the day so i’m trying to sleep but at the same time my brain and saying wake up let’s go get some stuff done or spend time with your family because it’s saturday and you’re asleep and they’re not and instead you work at night where they’re off home sleeping and you’re sleeping
When they’re all having fun so the shift is awful i’ve been trying to get off nights for a long time and i’m definitely going to switch to day shift as soon as the opportunity comes around because this has been hard but ask for breastfeeding i can’t pump every two hours my son eats every two to three hours without fell and always three ounces out of time and i’ve
Tried to extend him out so that i’ll make more and then pump less less time but make more milk and it hasn’t worked out so well for me so i can’t pump every two hours at work i can’t leave my patients unattended every two hours so i can go pump i mean i work on an icu unit and we have a really sick patients and you can’t expect all the other nurses to always drop
What’s going on with their patients to watch your patients while you go pump now my work has been amazing and they’re so supportive of me and they have no issue taking on my load that they’re still a responsibility that comes to you know your patients and your fellow co-workers and to ours pumping constantly is just it’s too much at work i can’t do it so i do pump
About three times each shift and our chefs are about 13 hours by the time it’s all said and done with like shift report and how that works inside of hospitals but when i was pumping it was pumping out exactly what he needed to the the last drop and all of a sudden i went from pumping exactly what he needed to my milk supply just dropping a lot and he he was eating
Three ounces every two to three hours and all of a sudden i’m only pumping out too and that was it no matter what i was doing i couldn’t seem to pump out more so here i am losing ances every single time at pum versus what he means and i’m already behind every single time and my milk supply in my freezer just was depleted because he needs to be fed and so at this
Point i’m thinking well the fed baby is a healthy baby and it doesn’t matter how this baby is being fed as long as he’s being fed and healthy and so i talk to the pediatrician about it i was wanting to start him on formula and he said well are you wanting to still breastfeed and i said why i do but i’m not making the nate say no that i should be and i’m doing
Everything that i can but i’m not making enough this time so he suggested i get on the raglan and i called my ob and i talked to my ob about what i talked to the pediatrician about and they agreed that they think regular would be a good option for me so i got a prescription for it if you don’t understand what reglan is it is something for your gi it empties out
Your your gastric juices your stomach contents quickly to prevent like acid reflux basically that’s what it does but it also connects to the dopamine receptors in your brain and like clogs them and then it forces prolactin to be produced prolactin produces breast milk so breast milk is actually a side-effect of taking the medication it doesn’t cause you to produce
Milk breast milk because that’s not what’s prescribed core but it is a side effect of it so i started taking it and i started taking it at the prescription that was given to me and i started having some serious gi issues and one other side effect is like anxiety and panic attacks so they don’t recommend you take it if you have a history of anxiety and panic attacks
And so when i talked to the doctor about it it was like well who has never had an anxiety attack before i mean everybody has anxiety in one way or another in life at some point and she’s like well let’s try it and see if it works for you okay so i try it and i did have a panic attack wall how’s that work like worst time ever to have a panic attack is while you’re at
Work and i worked through it tried my best date through that night that was the worst night ever trying to get through basically an hours-long panic attack and i was like crud and then i was having all of these gi issues my stomach was rolling so hard that you could hear my stomach from across the room just now and it hurt my stomach hurt okay so i started cutting
Down because the way that it works in your chemicals with your brain you can’t just stop the medication completely because then you’re going to dry out which complete opposite of what i’m trying to do so i started weaning back until my stomach felt fine and then i left it at that dose for a while and then i started building up the dose a little bit a little bit
More until i got to the prescription dose that was put on the bottle for me that worked out so much better and i wish i would have tried that from the beginning started out small and worked my way up instead of going with the actual dose and then i’m gonna go back track and then move back to where i needed to be but lesson learned that’s okay so i’ve been on it
For about a month and now i pump out about four ounces which is awesome because he needs three and so when i started taking it i was pumping out only two and i was started out for you like i said drop down to two and then i got back to where i needed to be for him plus an extra balance so it’s worked out really well for me i mean i’m not like stocking my freezer
Up with crazy amounts of milk and i maybe would be able to if i wasn’t working but if i was like a stay-at-home mom that extra little bit all the time would be great because when baby starts cluster feeding and that kind of stuff if out of state halt mom i could just constantly nurse whenever baby wants to i can’t do that at work so then there’s extra milk in the
Freezer for my husband to take care of the cluster feeding when he’s about to go through these growing spurts so it’s there and available now it’s just not like an extra amount i’m not like asking people for freezer space or anything but it works it’s worked well for me and if you’re struggling with it with the breast feeding and your supply it’s worth looking into
It helped it did exactly what i needed it to do and it was an option for me to be able to keep breastfeeding and not give up on it so if there’s anyone out there that’s dealing with the supply and they’re at the end where they feel like they need to give up talk to your doctor talk to your ob talk to your your child’s pediatrician and get their opinions on what
You think and and see if maybe it might be an option for you but it worked for me and i’m definitely thankful for the doctors that saved me from giving up because now i am successfully able to breastfeed
Transcribed from video
My Reglan for milk production experience By The Merboth Family
