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Breastfeeding
Success with nipple shield!
I just wanted to share my story to anyone who might be about to throw in the towel due to shallow latch issues. For the first two weeks after giving birth I almost exclusively pumped. My daughter has a shallow latch that I was unable to correct with multiple visits to lcs. To make it worse, my daughter completely refused my left breast, I thought maybe because my nipple was flatter on this side (although the lcs said they didn't see a problem with it). Basically I would spend twenty minutes nursing my daughter on the right and my nipple would be too chewed up and bloody to let her near it for another day or two (I was prescribed APNO which helped a little but didn't really solve the issue). She would scream when I put her to the left, so I just kept trying and after her screaming sessions, bottle fed her pumped milk. For two weeks I spent most of my day alternating between rubbing APNO on my blooding right nipple, watching my daughter screaming at the sight of my bare left breast and pumping (8 times a day). I was absolutely miserable.
I picked up a nipple guard at Target on Monday, just because I was in the Medela aisle buying more bottles and happened to see it. I had brought up the idea of a nipple shield to my lc in the hospital but she was really negative about it. I was thinking about quitting pumping/attempting to breastfeed altogether, so I decided to try it anyway. I used it on my left nipple (the one my daughter consistently refused) -- and not only did it work, it seems to have also corrected her latch issue on my right side! I think it's because the nipple shield is a lot bigger than my nipple so she's getting used to putting more in her mouth for a deeper latch. I've been using the shield on the left and nursing without the shield on the right since Monday and I've gone from 95% pumping, 5% bfing to 80% bfing and 20% pumping! I think I could be doing 100% bfing, except I still pump so I can go out and my DH can feed our daughter. I'm so happy!!
I know nipple shields cause issues for some people, but for me it definitely saved breastfeeding.
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Re: Success with nipple shield!
Wow. I'm surprised your LC was against the nipple shield. Luckily mine was for it. It really helped out my little man...though he was 4 weeks early. I JUST had success without the shield this morning.
Good luck!