My problems came because of my abundance of milk rather than my lack of it…for me this is more about my struggle with mastitis, blocked ducts and cracked nipples. I really felt alone in my problems, with no-one really able to define what the problem was and no-one able to give me a solution. I spent hours on the internet trying to self-diagnose and there were weeks when I believe I thought about nothing but my breasts – I thought it was going to drive me crazy. In a time when there is so much of a push to breastfeed, it seemed wrong that no-one was able to help me diagnose what exactly was going wrong and give me some assistance to fix it. In the first couple of weeks I got a red patch. When I showed it to my midwife she diagnosed mastitis and sent me off for my first set of antibiotics – this was to be the first of many and I basically then spent the next four months on and off antibiotics. The mastitis (if that is what it was) came and went constantly – I was always at the doctor (fortunately my son was a great baby so he didn’t add any stress – apart from having a baby for the first time!), trying different courses and types of antibiotics. My problem wasn’t so much that I was sick but that I had red patches and hard lumps that came and went. I now believe this was blocked milk ducts that came as a result of a cracked nipple.

It began to feel like I was being driven crazy from constantly thinking about my boobs. I just had so much milk that the second my son didn’t have quite enough or I wasn’t sitting in exactly the right position, the whole thing would start up again. The doctor didn’t really seem to have any solutions, and Plunket, after months of saying “Breast is Best” were suddenly saying the only solution to the mastitis was to stop feeding…if only it was that easy. My son, who took a bottle from 2 weeks stopped at 10 weeks as we didn’t give him a bottle for a week, and no-one (not even Plunket) could get him to drink it. Sure - if I was not around for days on end he would have drunk one but that wasn’t an option for me. Jimmy, my husband would have loved to have given him a bottle, and he had actually questioned at ante-natal class why were not allowed to be given any information on bottle feeding. Eventually they put a flyer on the wall but were not allowed to discuss it.

When my son was about 4 months old I went out one night with some friends, had a great night (but was in bed by about 10.30pm), however when I got home and got into bed I felt a bit cold, I then looked at the clock and realized I had been shivering for an hour and a half. This was it, my first (and fortunately only) full-blown mastitis. It is like the worst flu you have ever had, coupled with a small baby and having to breastfeed. Thankfully my son was sleeping through the night and my mother was a saviour.

This bout really set me back. I could not get out of bed for 2 days, my son was given to me to feed and then taken away. I couldn’t move and my head was going crazy – all I wanted to do was lie in bed and cry. It was so hard because although my family was fantastic, they couldn’t appreciate how I felt and no-one seemed to be able to give me any answers. I spoke with my doctor, a breast specialist, Plunket, and the breastfeeding coach at Birthcare and the only solutions were more antibiotics, stop feeding and give him a bottle (but only once the mastitis has gone)…AHHHHHH. Despite that amazing help I had from Jimmy and my parents, I felt like I was at the point that if a solution didn't come soon that I would have found it hard to not become depressed. In retrospect it seems extreme to say this but it was beginning to become all consuming and that conventional medicine and practices seemed to be unable to help me.

So I decided to go to a homeopath and the chiropractor. This was the beginning of the solution for me and the relief of this assistance was immense. The homeopath provided me with a set of homeopathic medicines, and worked through a solution for me. He believed that my son, whist showing no symptoms, actually had strep throat and was infecting me through the cracked nipple. The chiropractor manipulated my back and relieved a lot of the pressure I had between my shoulders from leaning over breastfeeding. It felt like a miracle – all of a sudden I was better – I then proceeded to breastfeed for another 6 months without a whisper of a problem.

I don’t know how to end this, other than to pose a question that surely someone has some extra advice and assistance on the issue of mastitis or related issues for those who suffer extended bouts. I really felt no-one was able to diagnose my problem exactly and I just got antibiotics. Surely in this day of “breast is best” there must be some specialist advice out there?

As someone who trained and worked as a nurse and midwife, who knew the benefits of breastfeeding, and who had advised and helped mothers who had just delivered to breastfeed, I felt quite prepared and capable to breastfeed my daughter.

However, I did not anticipate that I would have to use every piece of initiative and self motivation to keep breastfeeding. As I was an ex-health professional and because I had a very supportive husband I did not receive many post natal visits from my midwife. I did not have family living nearby and all my friends were mostly connected through work – staying at home with a new baby in the middle of winter proved to be a very isolating experience. Even so, everything was going well in the first couple of weeks. Sleep deprivation was slowly taking its toll though and one night, during a 3am feed, my baby failed to latch properly and cracked a nipple. Wow – what excruciating pain! This was followed by mastitis.

For the first time I realised what it is like to be a mother. I could not go to bed and be looked after. Oh no – I had a wee baby to tend to, who still needed her nappies changed and who very definitely had to feed frequently so that my breasts were kept empty. It was the first time I had ever experienced rigors. My breast was a bright rosy red hard apple! Antibiotics were effective and things settled down or at least seemed to. Unfortunately the infection had not cleared up properly and another case of mastitis occurred two weeks later. By this time I had been discharged by the midwife and handed over to the GP and Plunket. I was convinced that an abscess was developing but was told by two different GPs that “no everything was fine and just carry on”. In fact, I had to ask for further antibiotics after receiving a lecture about increasing my vitamin c and zinc intake! By now I was run down and very tired. I thought I could trust the doctors rather than my own intuition. So despite having fevers at night, a red and sore breast I just continued on.

My daughter and I travelled down to Christchurch for a week’s holiday. The day before we left I knew in no uncertain terms that it must be an abscess but I had lost all confidence in my GP here. I asked my mother to make an appointment with her doctor when I arrived. The GP took one look and sent me to hospital. I underwent surgery that night – 50-60 ml pus was drained from the breast and I was given a 4th course of antibiotics.

As I was now at risk for developing another dose of mastitis, my husband located the la leche league contacts who I rang. Although supportive over the phone they were not able to tell me anything that I didn’t know already. However one very important item of information that was passed on were the contact details for the local hospital’s lactation consultant. As I had only stayed in hospital overnight following the birth of my daughter, I had not met the lactation consultant and missed out on this information. The hospital offered a lactation service even three months after delivery. I saw the lactation consultant every week for the next five or six weeks initially about recurrent mastitis and then about milk supply and gastric reflux. Her advice, support, availability and interest is what kept me breastfeeding. Despite my daughter developing gastric reflux, despite continued problems with breast lumps and supply I was able to continue without supplementing with formula. I would not have been able to do this without this support. I breastfed until my daughter was 10 months old when she decided that was enough.

What I learnt from this experience is that advice and help does not come automatically. You have to keep asking and keep looking. I learnt to keep trusting my own intuition and not to have blind faith in doctors. I discovered the disjointed primary health service which we have in New Zealand. The GP knew nothing about the lactation service offered through the local hospital while the midwife was so busy with antenatal checkups and deliveries, that postnatal care was kept to a minimum. I experienced the awful guilt when your baby isn’t gaining weight despite your best efforts and I experienced the same guilt when offering formula is compared to offering poison. Women want to breastfeed but when health professionals are not prepared to spend the time really trying to help, women can fail. All we really want is to do the best for our babies!

One day I was in a well-known children’s clothing shop and my baby was crying. My husband murmured to the shop assistant, ‘He’s hungry. We didn’t think we’d be so long and didn’t bring his bottle.’ The woman spun around and stared at me. ‘What? You’re not breastfeeding?’

I’m seven months pregnant with our second child. Am I worried about labour? The possibility of another caesarean? How to juggle two children? No, it’s breastfeeding I’m stressing about.

It didn’t go too well last time. My son was about eight weeks old when I ended up in hospital having a golf ball sized abscess hacked out of my breast. Mastitis is nasty and can escalate pretty quickly. This operation was after several attempts to drain it, a week of taking monster antibiotics and checking in with my doctor every day from the moment I first discovered the hot lump in my breast. Trying to ‘feed through it’ wasn’t exactly easy so my baby was on the bottle, exclusively, from then on.

Apart from the shop assistant I mentioned before, most people were supportive and understanding. Several women in my antenatal group bottle fed for various reasons e.g. having had a breast reduction, low milk supply.

In my case I knew it would be challenging from the start. I have inverted nipples (I paused for ages before being able to write that which I know is really silly) and couldn’t find much in the way of literature or advice in the lead up to my son’s birth. My midwife suggested a device called Niplette but she also mentioned the possibility of it bringing on early labour – by this stage I was well into my pregnancy and couldn’t find anything to allay my fears so it was a bit of a half-hearted attempt by me to use it.

On top of that, I had a caesarean which meant my milk came in later; I was chomped on until I bled in the recovery room high on morphine. Plus I have big boobs, making it harder for baby to latch! My baby was supplemented with a bottle from the start so I was always playing catch up in terms of milk supply.

Doesn’t this all sound like a tale of woe?

I think, looking back, it was me who was being hard on myself. Many, many tears were shed. Way more than was necessary. My son was extremely healthy, slept contentedly, we knew how much milk he was getting, we bonded easily, and his father shared the feeding which was extremely special for him (and meant I got the odd sleep-in). In fact my husband was amazing – non judgemental, supportive and he helped me look at the positives of bottle feeding.

I was offered support: I could hire a lactation consultant at $60 per hour; or the Family Centre offered free consultations if I could get there. In hindsight, I would chase up those opportunities. At the time, it all felt too hard.

I am planning on trying to breastfeed again, If I’m completely honest with myself, I’d dearly love to breastfeed my next baby. This time I’m not going to feel guilty about using the bottle if things don’t go to plan. I still feel as if I could have done more last time and as if I ‘failed’ in a way. However, I know that it’s not terrible if it doesn’t work out because it’s the relationship between the baby and I which is the most important thing – if I’m crying and stressed, it won’t help. It’s about you and your baby, not the politics of breast is best.

I was 35 when I became pregnant with my first child. On my first visit to my midwife at 11 weeks, she identified that I could face problems with breastfeeding as I had quite flat nipples. I was committed to breastfeeding my baby so I decided to start preparing myself during my pregnancy. I bought and used plastic nipple formers. I joined the La Leche League and started reading their book called the Womanly Art of Breastfeeding and I bought a breast pump, which I could use when my baby was born if I needed to.

My son arrived three weeks early. The birth went really well after a fairly short labour for a first baby. We were thrilled to meet our son and start getting to know him, but it was there that things started to become a struggle. I found that while I was in hospital, there was little acknowledgment that I had flat nipples and my baby couldn’t latch. A couple of the hospital midwives tried to draw out my nipples with a plastic syringe (minus the needle). It didn’t seem to help. I got differing advice and different approaches from different staff depending who was on duty. In the end I started using nipple shields so I felt like I was at least getting somewhere. It gave my son enough to hold onto to be able to latch. At no time was it drawn to my attention by the hospital staff that there was a lactation consultant who was available to provide free consultations and advice.

We went home from the hospital after two and a half days and I continued to breastfeed my son using nipple shields and I expressed as well. My son also had some formula top-ups as he had jaundice. Just over a week after my son was born I developed mastitis. I continued to breastfeed through this, still using the nipple shields. At first I was treated at home with oral antibiotics, but over the next four days when it didn’t clear and I wasn’t getting any better, I was re-admitted to hospital and put onto IV antibiotics.

During those four days at home while I had mastitis, I began to feel depressed and helpless as I couldn’t see any way of being able to successfully feed my son. I cried a lot and couldn’t see how anything was going to change. I felt upset that I would have to go back to hospital where I didn’t get any support. I think that I was waiting for someone to give me permission to give up breastfeeding as I could no longer cope with the struggle. My midwife was incredibly supportive and non-judgmental about whether or not I continued to breastfeed, and that was the support I needed to make the decision to give up. It is one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make and I am still haunted by that decision and whether it will adversely affect my son. It is reassuring to know that he’s a happy, healthy 22-month-old boy.

Once I made the decision to give up, I found that the hospital staff (when I was re-admitted) were generally more helpful and some were actually fantastic. I remember one hospital midwife telling me that if you stood at a school gate and watched all the children leaving school at the end of the day, you wouldn’t be able to tell which ones were breastfed and which were bottle fed. We were shown best practice for formula feeding while in the hospital (yes, the information is there if you want it), so that when we went home, we were able to formula feed with confidence. When we did go home, my husband and I decided to make a fresh start, like we were bringing our son home for the first time. I also feel really happy that I was able to give him two weeks of breast milk, including the colostrum.

I am now expecting another baby. I fully intend to try breastfeeding again and will be arming myself with the best help I can get even before I give birth. I have moved to a new area since I had my first child and we have a fantastic lactation consultant here, so I will be consulting her before I have the baby and during the first few weeks. I will have to pay for that, but she is someone I trust and believe I can form a relationship with.

My experience is that it is difficult for most people to understand what it is like for mothers who have found breastfeeding difficult. I’ve found that the ones who truly understand are those who have struggled themselves, whether it is with poor milk supply, inability to latch, flat or inverted nipples etc. Make sure you have some of these people in your life. If you choose to give up, it is important for you to learn to deal with your feelings about your decision and the opinions of those around you. It may take a long time for you to work through what has happened to you.