One of my other friends, when I had my son she was at home, thankfully that day and one of one of my friends came here and then said “Oh [participant name], I’ve never seen you breastfeed this baby” and my friend who is also like me said “oh really, you have not, I’ve seen her countless of times” so that just shut her mouth [laughs]. So she was there at the right time to answer questions, she said “no I’ve seen her many times so you’ve not had the opportunity to see.”

Because I know that obviously in terms of the nutritional value it’s better than cow’s milk, isn’t it, naturally that’s how it’s supposed to be. So, I wouldn’t have wanted anything else than to give the baby what I know nutritionally is 100% better and not only that the bond, you know, between me and the baby, you know, even just the few times I connecting to each other, you know. So it was, it was a bit emotional for me, you know, that it didn’t happen.

He had jaundice and the lack of awareness and the nurses who they obviously are not HIV trained background, they did not know how to support me. I did call there was a group there was a lady that gave me the number as well, they also deal with people with HIV and give support in terms of surrounding breastfeeding. I remember that evening I called them, but maybe they were out of office, if they could support me at that time I really, I didn’t want to do it

The first day I breastfed, it was good like I said I was really happy doing it and I was just caught unaware. The decision was just instant, “he needs this amount of fluid” you know, and my milk is not producing it like give me a chance, it didn’t make no difference though, for you to know that it wasn’t necessary because despite the formula milk it still didn’t get rid of the jaundice so I had to stay there again, so the problem was nothing to do with breast milk or anything like that because it still didn’t go, until they did further treatment and by that time the breast milk was gushing out, so the support was really poor.

I’m happy that he’s healthy you know, but what can you do, it didn’t happen the jaundice messed up everything that they would have at least supported me, you know, because just the following morning the breasts were full of milk, because the reason why he was put on the other milk is because they said I wasn’t bringing milk enough but again, that doesn’t even make sense because I think the first day or so the milk sometimes doesn’t come out, so long as you have the liquid gold, so the following day it was obviously a lot, but it was too late because they said that I couldn’t do combination, so once he was started on that one, that’s it, you can’t do both, so I had to just concentrate on the other one.

I don’t particularly blame the nurses because they’re just, they’re just doing what they believe is safe for the baby isn’t it, so they’re not trained to deal with things like this because it’s just general, so if for example the nurses who have a bit of background about people who are HIV positive I don’t think they would have just dealt with it the way it was dealt with no, I believe that if they were trained they would have obviously given me a bit more support. I know how busy it can be on the wards even while I was there I can see how busy like nobody has that time to be patient enough to say ‘okay, let’s wait’ they just want to do it now and get along with it, you know, so the support obviously wasn’t there and because it was out of, I believe that my main midwife out patient, if she was there she would have supported me a bit more because she understands because that’s her speciality, isn’t it, she was with me along the way to say ‘yeah, if you want to breastfeed’, so she was there to support.

Yeah it wasn’t a problem, he brought it yeah and I love it when things happen to me naturally I’m a believer of natural things, I remember they gave me tablets to dry up the milk and I have a choice isn’t it, I didn’t have to tell them that I just threw it away and let it dry up naturally, you know, you can’t just play with people’s bodies like “take this, do that” I can choose what I want to do, so I threw it away and then once your, don’t breastfeed it stops anyway, I don’t have to take anything to dry up anything, but I didn’t bother to explain to them I just had the choice to throw it away and just let the natural process takes its course, so that’s what I did, so yeah.