Breastfeeding After C-Section

Any pregnant woman should inquire beforehand about breastfeeding in case of a c-section, because it may be necessary in case of complications at the time of delivery, so you might as well prepare for this eventuality to put all the chances on your side and succeed in your breastfeeding project.

What Are The Main Difficulties Associated With C-Section?

1. It is an invasive surgical procedure that will require a more or less long recovery time depending on your feelings, your experience, and your ability to heal. You will be painful at first and your movements will be hindered. Analgesics will surely be prescribed and a companion (spouse, friend, …) will be necessary during your stay at the maternity and often the first 10 days after returning home to help you in the care to give to your baby and in your arrangement to be able to breastfeed him comfortably
2. Depending on the circumstances and the hospital team, skin-to-skin contact with your baby may be postponed with more or less long separation, resulting in breastfeeding often being delayed.
3. Your milky rise can sometimes be later, especially in the case of a planned cesarean section or in case of bleeding or great stress related to an emergency cesarean section after a long traumatic labor.
4. Breastfeeding positions should be adapted so as not to cause you additional pain

Tips To Overcome The Difficulties Of C-Section:

1. Familiarize yourself with the manual expression technique so that you can extract your colostrum within 2 hours of your operation. It can be collected using a small pipette that will then be given to your baby. This will avoid the use of artificial infant formula and you will feel valued by extracting this health elixir for your baby yourself.
2. As soon as you go to find your baby, place him skin to skin and savor this moment of sensory encounter, it will soothe you and stimulate his sucking reflexes
3. Favor calm by limiting the number of visitors as much as possible. You will already be disturbed enough by the comings and goings of the nursing staff.
4. Take extra pillows with you and familiarize yourself with the “Biological Nurturing” approach, which prioritizes the comfort of the mother for more serene and instinctive breastfeeding. Here are the main principles: you are in full back support more or less inclined and your baby is placed in a prone position all over your body or partly with full plantar support, either on the nursing cuff that you have put on or on part of the bed. The direction of his body with yours can be longitudinal, transverse, or oblique, it is to experiment with your baby.
5. Favor frequent contact with your baby, especially the first 48 hours. He should spend only a minimum of time in his hospital cradle. This will allow you to know him better, to identify his different states of wakefulness and sleep to anticipate feedings, and to do them calmly and not in screams.
6. You can use a nursing cuff that is positioned around the arm rather than at the waist to avoid friction with your scar.

Breastfeeding is first and foremost a relationship and even in case of difficult beginnings, it can flourish and give you great satisfaction. Support is essential as well as reliable information preferably given before your baby is born.