After much frustration, anger, doubt, tears, scabs, and painpainpain, attempting to breastfeed with diminishing results, Lorie & I just moments ago discovered the miracle of nipple shields and Audrey is drunk on wholesome motherly goodness!!!
I searched far and wide for those simple little discs of clear flexible silicone with the perforated cone in the center. So many clerks in drug stores and baby boutique stores were clueless (and so was I!) No, a nipple shield is not a nursing pad. No, a nipple shield is not a 2" diameter dollup of rubber. And absolutely not, a nipple shield is not a flesh colored daisy-shaped felt pasty fer chrissakes! My next stop was going to be a nearby hospital pharmacy but I had to go to Target to get a bunch of other stuff. And it turns out Target has nipple shields just 3 blocks from our apartment! A nice clerk there knew exactly what I was talking about and took me right to the product on the shelf. I swear if there is anything that Target doesn't carry I have yet to find out.
Anyway we are relieved beyond words to see Audrey regain 100% interest in breastfeeding using these shields. However, we're still going to have a lactation consultant come over tomorrow so we can avoid any other pitfalls. It's so frustrating that something so fundamental and natural can be so difficult and painful. For millions of years of human evolution, if baby didn't suck, baby died, so you'd think nature would have totally perfected this activity by now.
1 comment:
aah, nipple shields, i remember them well. and i also remember the pain and frustration of my kids and i not being able to figure out the nursing thing, either. i think one of the advantages of staying in the hospital for a week, like our mothers did, was that it gave time for your milk to come in and a time and place to work with nurses on the breast feeding thing. i wish i was there to help you out. please don't give up on breastfeeding--the first few weeks are the hardest, really, and then it does get easier.
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