Special Delivery Summer 2017 | Page 28

Pregnancy & Birth

had a chance to fill up all those little syringes at home as it really would have taken the pressure off!

My milk finally came through and still Anna had issues latching on. She would be screaming in hunger and frustration and it was devastating and not something we were at all prepared for. What made it worse is that whilst Steph kept saying not to worry because it was the tongue tie, all the other staff each had their own opinion. Some implied it was technique which made me feel even worse. Anna lost weight and so we resorted to expressing using a machine and bottle feeding. I kept trying with breast feeding but we generally ended up having to feed her with a bottle.

That went on for the first week when she had the operation for tongue tie. But it actually then continued for another five weeks after that. I struggled with breast feeding and generally had to express and give her milk using a bottle. It turned out she was still tongue tied and when we had the second operation for it her tongue was still 50% tied.

The first few weeks were extremely hard not only due to issues with feeding but due to the pain I was in. I struggled to lift Anna and walk around with her. Thankfully whilst we were still in the hospital, Steph had suggested taking her to see a chiropractor who specialises in paediatrics due to the trauma of the birth. She recommended Polly Hand who she had taken her whole family to. We were nervous to take our two week old baby to a chiropractor but Patrick spoke to Polly about Anna and the pain I was in and she was very reassuring. So we travelled to Balham and on the first walk from the station I was in tears of pain to get to Chiropractic By Hand. Thankfully Polly was our second ‘saviour’ and she did gentle manipulations on Anna’s neck and head (both of which had been impacted due to the difficulties with the birth) and very gentle adjustments on me. After a few appointments I was walking fine and the pain was a lot less. I still go now because I never want my back to get that bad again and we take Anna on a regular basis for checks.

I am always quite keen to talk about my pregnancy and birth experience because I suffered a great deal due to an unaligned pelvis and it is pretty heart-breaking to know now that I didn’t need to. You don’t have to just accept back pain as being a part of pregnancy. Also had I got my pelvis better aligned I believe Anna’s shoulder wouldn’t have got stuck coming out. I also really believe women should talk more about the times when breast feeding doesn’t go smoothly and be more aware of tongue tie. If we have another baby I plan to visit Polly throughout my pregnancy, to do some colostrum expressing a few weeks early and have a number of a private tongue tie doctor ready just in case.

My birth story continued...

"The first few weeks were extremely hard not only due to issues with feeding but due to the pain I was in."

We are always so grateful to all the amazing women (and men) who share their birth stories with us through the magazine. It's such a wonderful way to learn more about birth in whatever form, and often the authors say how therapeutic writing it all down has been. If you'd like to share your birth story, please email us on [email protected]