A personal story - thanks to Cita  

After the miracle of finding out you are in fact pregnant while still feeding loads, including 2-3 times a night, the lovely morning sickness and tiredness kicks in.  I had read that breastfeeding can hold off the worst of morning sickness.  Well unfortunately not the case for me.  It has definitely been worse on this pregnancy.  And the sickness and tiredness has lasted a lot longer. I can’t put that down to breastfeeding – just this baby I’d say.

But it has been nice to keep the connection going with my little girl who was 16 months when this baby was conceived, even if it is a little more tiring. 

I have tried to make sure I eat very well and have taken my calcium, multi-vitamin and omega-3 supplements (checked first with my doctor!) the whole way though, as well as extra folic acid in the first 3 months.  I realise that my body is working for 3 in this pregnancy.  But it is also been a great excuse for the odd bit of large chocolate cake dripping with chocolate sauce and cream! 

I was kinda hoping that as the taste of the milk changed during the pregnancy that my daughter would wean herself off all by herself.  But nothing has deterred her!  And now that I am in the last 2 months of pregnancy it is often hard to find a comfortable position for both belie and 23 months old.  So it would be extra lovely if she weaned. But still the changing milk has not deterred her. My hubbie decided it was time now to wean and he would get her up every morning for breakfast and put her to bed. Well he lasted 10 mins. the first night before calling in the back-up! And he did 2 or so mornings before her realised that when mommy breastfeeds he gets an extra hour in bed...

So now he has kinda laid off his comments about 2 babies hanging out of me... And when I now ask him what we should do about weaning number one he is no longer as empathic in his response but looks at me with a forlorn look, but no demands.  So all we can hope for now is that she does not like the taste of baby baby milk and declines all on her own (really hopping for this!).

The only thing I had to get over in relation to the medical profession was around week 9.  I felt a couple of twinges. In all honesty we were going on a family hol. with my family and I was a bit nervous.  I knew that the placenta starts to take over in the next couple of weeks and that is when many miscarriages if they are to occur often do. The what if’s etc. were making me nervous – a strange country, strange language, strange hospitals etc. and my brain and obviously body went into female pregnancy over drive. 

So I rang my hospital and thought they would say it was only the stretching of the uterus so I’d be fine.  But instead they told me to come in.  When I did and was scanned and all was perfect. But then  I was then told in no uncertain terms to stop breastfeeding IMMEDIATELY.  I said it was out of the question.  When I had calmed down I asked why? I was told that it could bring on pre-term labour.  But I said that my research had led me to believe that it was ill-advised to breastfeed if there was a history of miscarriage (more than 1), or preterm labour (before 37 weeks) as well as a couple of other things.  None of which applied to me.  And the doctor said yes well sure she is way too old to be breastfeeding anyway; I’ll put her off her solids.  Now obviously she has never met my quite slim, small (following the family in height) yet gobbler of a daughter.  She can just be a hover! 

I then said that I was doing the best for my daughter as per the WHO guidelines.  Which she then told me was only meant for women in the third world! So that was it. Of course I did not give up breastfeeding and have gone with the WHO guidelines as much as I personally can in the circumstances I now find myself in (I work from home so it does make things a lot easier) .  But it is a pity the doctor seems to have so little respect for the WHO recommendations and little knowledge of the effect of breastfeeding and pregnancy.   Yes there are definitely times when breastfeeding is not to be recommended while pregnant but there are many other times when it is perfectly safe.

So that is my tale so far and 6 weeks to go to the impending birth.

Dany's Story:

I had my second daughter on the breast for nearly two years when we decided to try and conceive again. At that stage I had heard about feeding through pregnancy and tandem nursing and I was considering it, because I wanted my daughter to decide when she will wean, instead of taking it away from her before she is ready. I purchased a book by Hilary Flower called ‘Adventures in tandem nursing’ and this prepared me. I had just finished reading it when I got a positive pregnancy test, and it was very reassuring to know what to expect.

The first sign of pregnancy for me was going up a cup size immediately in my two previous pregnancies, but this didn’t happen in this pregnancy. I assume this was because I was still breastfeeding.

My daughter was nursing between six and eight times in 24 hours, including one or two night feeds. Over the first trimester I noticed that she was swallowing less, but she gave me no other signs that my supply was diminishing or that the taste had changed. Some toddlers will wean themselves during pregnancy, due to the lack of milk (which doesn’t happen to every woman) or due to the milk tasting saltier than before. But mine was one of the toddlers who didn’t care about that; as long as she still got the comfort from my breasts she was happy. Even when I had no milk at all when I was 15 weeks into my pregnancy.

As for morning sickness, some women find that it gets worse during a breastfeed and others find that it gets better during a feed. A few women who stopped breastfeeding during pregnancy only experienced morning sickness after that. Fortunately I never had morning sickness in any of my pregnancies.

Another thing I had read about was nipple pain. It can come and go, be mild or really bad, and again not every woman will experience this. In my case it felt like knives stabbing in your nipples when my daughter latched on, but after about ten seconds the pain would go away. It was bearable, so I wasn’t going to stop breastfeeding. By now she had little time to feed during the day as she is a little busy bee, so she was only feeding about four times a day now.

But at around 26 weeks the pain got worse and stayed during the whole feed. At that time she also started waking up more at night, and needing me to feed her back to sleep. Normally I would fall asleep again during the feed, but because of the pain I couldn’t. The lack of sleep drove me to decide to reduce the feeds to one, at bedtime. I explained the rule to my little girl. I also said she could come into our bed if she woke up at night, but we would just have a cuddle and go back to sleep, as the boobies were sleeping too. She accepted this without too much fuss and soon got used to it. The nipple pain disappeared again, but I stuck to our new rule because at nearly 2 ½ years I didn’t want to feed her more often than she asked for. After all, she would have to wean herself at some stage. It would be very handy when the new baby was born if my toddler wouldn’t ask for night feeds anymore. That way daddy could take over settling her at night if she wakes.

At 29 weeks I noticed my breasts producing a clear liquid again, which soon changed to the colour of foremilk. My daughter was swallowing again during a feed and she was finished sooner than before.

Some people (also in the medical world) worry that the oxytocin that your body produces during breastfeeding might cause miscarriage or premature labour, but the uterus actually doesn’t become sensitive to this oxytocin until the baby is ready to come out anyway. I think it’s a bit like all the stories about what could make you go into labour (raspberry leaf tea, fresh pineapple heart, hot curry, making love); they only work if you were ready anyway. The usual advice is as long as you’re still allowed to have intercourse, you can continue to breastfeed. At the same time I was hoping that my labour would start because of breastfeeding, so that I wouldn’t have to be induced. Otherwise I planned on breastfeeding during labour, to avoid having to get the oxytocin drip.

As it was I planned a homebirth, but in spite of feeding my toddler a bit more often again when she wanted it, I still went eleven days over. Then mild contractions started one night and I knew this was it. A little while later, when the midwife had arrived, my daughter woke up all panicky and I fed her for a while, sitting on my birthing ball and noticing the contractions got stronger during the feed. When she was done, my parents who were staying over took her downstairs and labour really got going then. So I do believe that breastfeeding can speed up a labour that is a bit slow starting off.

I was glad I could continue giving my little girl the comfort feeds that she needed all through my pregnancy and I would definitely do it again for my youngest, should I fall pregnant again.