It’s been exactly one month since ending our breastfeeding journey. I feel very fortunate, my experience overall was a good one. My son latched right away in the recovery room, it seemed as if he knew exactly what to do. At least one of us did. We took a breastfeeding class at the birth center and I got advice from friends. Read a few books too, but it’s not exactly something you can practice. My labor resulted in a c-section, and maybe one day soon I will document my birth story here, but essentially labor never progressed. I was induced at 38 weeks due to high blood pressure, and baby boy was not ready to meet us.

Nursing after a C-Section

So, yes your milk will come in if you have a c-section. Once the placenta is “delivered”, however you deliver it, that signals your body to start producing milk. One thing that will be difficult is getting in and out of bed to get your baby to feed him. Also, in the hospital I was trying to use all the fancy pillows that go around your waist. Well, that hurts..so the football hold is the way to go! I just used a regular pillow, and then once my incision healed a little bit I could use the Brest Friend Pillow.  I definitely preferred this one over the boppy for feeding the baby.

Harrison was born Tuesday at 11:46pm and we were finally able to leave the hospital on Saturday. That was the day my milk came in. I am a very shy person, but I was surprised to find that I wasn’t shy at all about nursing Harrison. I was more like – hey, look what I can do!! Also, when you are doing it 8-10 times a day and recovering from major surgery, you don’t really feel like getting up to go hide in another room. I always used a cover when out in public, because that was what worked for me. This milk snob cover is a must and comes in so many cute patterns.

Anxiety during breastfeeding

I remember sitting on the couch feeding Harrison the day we arrived home. This feeling of sheer panic came over me. I’ve never felt such intense anxiety and agitation in my life. It felt like I needed to get up and run around the room, I wanted to just jump out of my skin. I literally said to my mom, something is wrong, can you please take the baby I need a minute. No idea what was going on, I thought I was losing it.

Turns out, this is an actual condition, called Dysphoric Milk Ejection Reflex (D-MER for short). It seems that the research is limited and the condition is not widely recognized or talked about. I certainly had never heard about it. This article, published in June 2017 describes it perfectly – DMER: the scary breastfeeding condition you’ve never heard of. I was aware of postpartum depression/anxiety, cracked nipples, clogged milk ducts, mastitis, colic, and sleep deprivation, but not this.

What is D-MER

“Preliminary studies suggest that the natural drop in dopamine at the start of a feeding, which happens so that prolactin can rise, is sharper in women with D-MER. Dopamine is the mood “stabilizer” of our bodies and prolactin is the hormone mainly responsible for milk production and let down. Normally, this small drop in dopamine is never noticed by mothers and it stabilizes again a few moments after the initial let down of milk. But in D-MER mothers the drop is larger, faster, and noticable in the wave of emotions that wash over them right before and as the milk lets down but quickly dissipates as the milk begins to flow.” (Source: birthwithoutfearblog.com )

The feeling only happened during let down and lasted for a few minutes, so I knew it had to be directly related to breastfeeding. I headed right to balancedbreastfeeding.com, a blog that is managed by a local lactation consultant, Katie Madden. I was relieved to find three blog posts related to anxiety during breastfeeding and quickly learned that this was a condition that could be managed, and I wasn’t crazy.

Once I became aware of it, I just tried to stay calm and take deep breaths while staying mindful that the feeling would pass. It’s hard to remember when I stopped feeling this way but I think things regulated after about a month or so. Hormones are CRAZY, let me tell you. Side note: Don’t watch any episodes of Grey’s Anatomy when you are postpartum, I cried for 2 hours and couldn’t stop!

My Experience Overall

Despite this issue, my breastfeeding experience was great. I’m very grateful that my body produced enough milk and Harrison was generally cooperative. I was able to exclusively nurse him until we introduced solids at 6 months, and continued until we introduced cow’s milk around 12 months. I slowly weaned until I was only nursing him at night before bed and shortly after he turned 15 months I nursed him for the last time. It was a very graceful and natural process for both of us.

The best advice I was ever given was to set small goals. Take it two weeks at a time. There were always ups and downs and I was constantly second guessing myself. There is so much to know about breastfeeding that sometimes it becomes too much information. Is my supply dropping? Is he eating enough? Am I eating enough? Is he getting too much fore-milk? Why won’t he stop biting me, does this mean he is done nursing?! Don’t give up, you are doing an amazing job! Sometimes you just need some encouragement because the baby that you spend 24 hours a day with can’t tell you these things.

Resources

Even though D-MER only affects a small percentage of breastfeeding women, I wish that someone would have shared their story with me. So if you are experiencing these feelings, you are not crazy and you are not alone. I’ve gathered a list of websites and resources where you can find more information below:

kellymom.com

d-mer.org

thebadassbreastfeeder.com

birthwithoutfearblog.com