Yes, there is actually if you’re continuously breastfeeding you won’t get pregnant because, especially back home where we come from, mums they breastfeed until two years so then they wouldn’t get pregnant, as long as you’re breastfeeding continuously that is a contraceptive. Well, that’s what my parents or my aunties and everyone will think, there is, maybe some people medically or professionals they probably think, ‘No it’s not’, but I even personally think so, it is, because one whole year of my baby’s life I didn’t fall pregnant I was just on breastfeeding, the pill that this powerful one the breastfeeding pill that’s all and my, one of my sister’s she was breastfeeding her child for two years she wasn’t taking no pill, she wasn’t doing, using anything to be honest, she didn’t fall pregnant, so I think in our culture, in our generation or in people from back home they use that as a, breastfeeding as a contraception definitely, yeah, definitely.

So when did you start the contraceptive pill?

Oh I started it quite late to be honest.

I mean, after this baby.

Oh yeah.

Are you on it again now?

Yes I’m on it again now because I’m not breastfeeding, because of work I’m not breastfeeding continuously and that, I am, I’ll be honest with you I’m trying to, not trying not yet, but in summer I will start weaning him off, slowly, so it helps me when I’m coming to work and like a few hours hes not having it, so for that reason, yeah.

Did you notice when you started the contraceptive pill did it affect your milk supply?

Do you know actually I did ask them, I did ask the nurse before I start and one of them she said, ‘No it shouldn’t effect your breastmilk supply. It probably, because I did ask will it dry up or anything like that but I did have, because I don’t want to stop feeding now until he, you know, hes proper off, I want him to come off it, I don’t want to force him to come off it because I, you know, if he, if theres milk there why should I waste it? And no they said it should be fine and so, hopefully it should be okay, definitely, hopefully, no I haven’t and I think that when he starts asking if theres enough milk for him, enough milk.

Is that a problem for you this constant feeding?

Occasionally I’ll notice, roughly about, about once a month in time with the monthly cycle I get to find it, I find it a nuisance so, sort of adding insult to injury that with, when he was born I was feeding so much was that my periods came back when he was four weeks old, and I was furious to say the least, I’d had eight months off with my daughter and they just came back straightaway, I’ve no idea why and I found it.

He was exclusively breastfed on demand?

He was breastfeeding yeah and they came back straightway at four weeks, and I was absolutely furious, I thought this is not part of the deal, you know? [Laughs].

What does that say to you?

I was not impressed so, at all, I don’t know why it was I thought about it, I thought, ‘Has there been a time when hes not really breastfed much one day’ but he hadn’t gone long, he went four hours once and then that was it I just thought, ‘Well that can’t be long enough but no they just came straight back, but then they came straight back after my ectopic pregnancy it was only two days and they came back, and at first when they came back when he was born I didn’t realise I just thought well I’ve obviously been overdoing it and it’s just that after the caesarean it just started bleeding again. But then it was four weeks later and it was four weeks later and so obviously, that was that and so I was not amused [laughs] to say the least, it’s not supposed to happen.

So you would not rely on breastfeeding as a contraceptive?

Well wed, we were talking about whether we wanted to have another child or not and so on and we said, ‘Well were not going to prevent it and well see what happens’ and sixteen months later nothings happened, so it’s obviously doing, it’s obviously working as a contraceptive I wouldn’t say anyone should rely on it but it obviously is working, because nothing has happened but then maybe it’s not working I don’t know yet and it’s just some other reason, but no I wouldn’t rely on it, but no in sixteen months and hes still breastfeeding and nothings happened so.

Can you tell me are you practising any form of contraception?

Yeah.

Yeah, what are you doing?

I'm back on the Pill but I have gone on to the Noriday Pill I think it’s called just because it’s a progesterone only Pill, which means that the normal Pill can interfere with your breastfeeding and so I have asked for advice on contraception and this is one they obviously said you know if you are going to have sexual intercourse before this, use a condom because you, you are most fertile for three weeks after having a baby and basically I left it and you start taking the Pill three weeks after having a baby and then you don't stop taking it if you get what I mean theres no breaks or gaps, which you normally have, that’s the only one they've said to me to take, it’s just because it won't interfere with breastfeeding and I didn't want anything that was, you know, stop or interfere with it, I wanted to make sure that it would still flow for her and that wasn't going to affect her, I suppose, but yeah, that’s the one we've gone for.

Were you aware at the time of making this decision about the contraceptive effects of exclusive breastfeeding?

Yes, but, I wouldn't go [laughs] for that so many women have done that and got pregnant straight away and I ain't having that [laughs] I'd rather, it’s like using a condom and the Pill I suppose before but I'm with my same, the same partner and obviously know hes not got anything. But no I wouldn't, I wouldn't go via breastfeeding alone, that’s something I wouldn't, I just wouldn't trust it, it’s an old wifes tale, isn't it? You know I have enough not enough problems having her it was quite traumatic having her and I don't want another baby, I want her to be old enough to explain to me what’s wrong with her and so she can be involved with baby rather than having one nine months after having her, if you get what I mean it’s not fair on her because I wouldn't have got to know her, she would be a jealous little baby, and it’s not fair in my eyes so no, contraception [laughs], don't trust the boobies by themselves [laughs].

Do you remember when you began menstruating again?

Yes, not for a while, it was certainly after six months that I had a period and, so yes, no I didn’t see anything for a while which is another bonus [laughs] definitely because I have bad periods so, I wasn’t in any rush to get those back again, so, yes.

Did you know you were cycling again? Did you have any idea?

No I’ve never been very in tune, I’ve never really known when I was ovulating or anything like that so no it was just when it happened it was a bit of a shock actually, it was coming back from our first holiday, wed just crossed the Channel [laughs] on the train and yes, and I realised that I was having a period, so yes that was a bit of a shock, but that was the first time.

Anything else?

There was something came into my head as well I’m just trying to think what it was. I suppose there was this issue about whether you could become pregnant again while you were breastfeeding and weve been of the opinion that we, we wanted to, we were not going to use any contraception again, we wanted to have another baby, though, you know, as we weren’t bothered how close behind Michael the next baby might come, and we certainly wouldn’t have trusted breastfeeding to be a contraceptive in itself even in the early months when he was just breastfeeding all the time. We were warned beforehand and, you know, we were asked, you know, right around the time of birth, one of the first questions that we were asked by the midwife and health visitor, what would be your choice of contraception. So I think that was responsible, to be asking those questions, but for us it wasn’t an issue at that time but yeah there are a lot of conflicting messages that go about that even if you a colleague of my husbands at work has had a hidden pregnancy for four months very, shes expecting, she was very well on with her pregnancy by the time that anybody knew about it and she hadn’t had a period at all and was breastfeeding, you know, her little one, quite happily so it certainly can happen, weve got a close experience of personal friends who’ve had it happen so it’s not a protection that we had thought it would be.

There was actually one other thing that I was thinking of, the fact that I am pregnant again and it’s been interesting as far as breastfeedings concerned because I’ve had conflicting advice from, two people with backgrounds in, in health as well and, you know, what, concerns that, and I think both concerns are justified. One that, perhaps if you’re breastfeeding it can promote contractions, you know, so that, one was worried about because I had a bit of a rocky start to the pregnancy, whether it might encourage a miscarriage if there was any chance of it happening at all. But then another one saying to me, Well actually maybe you’ve got the bigger risk is that actually your milk might dry up because the other hormones are just going to flood your body because of the pregnancy. So, neither of which, thankfully, seem to have, you know, come to pass but the end result was well, were so close to him being twelve months old, hes not on many feeds a day now, let’s just push on through, and certainly my midwife said that in her experience, the women that have become pregnant again while they were breastfeeding have generally carried on, so I think again if you become pregnant again then don’t let that immediately make you panic and sort of think, Right I’m going to have to get the baby off. I mean in my case it will be nice once Michael reaches twelve months. It gives me a good six months before the next baby arrives.

I was feeding in the bed and I used to feed them cross-legged and I started to get problems like SPD pains in my pelvis.

SPD?

Symphysis Pubis Dysfunction I think it’s called, pain in the, in the middle of the pelvis which some people suffer a lot during pregnancy and I hadn’t suffered at all but I think weve, the relaxin hormone that’s still in your body and continues when you’re breastfeeding and, with quite a lot of, probably pelvis strain from a pregnancy with twins I found when I was trying to feed them cross-legged I was getting quite a lot of pain, and my cushions often ran away with me, I had a big, long beanbag cushion which I used to wrap around myself and about six pillows propping me up in every direction and I would feed like that and it, it worked well for a month or so but then I began to get quite painful wrists and arms, and quite painful pelvis and I was really looking for any alternative that I could, I could try and get to feed them comfortably, I’d actually suffered quite a lot of wrist and hand pain when I was feeding my first child and I’d had to get quite a lot of physio on my wrists and hands to try and relieve the pain but the key problem was that I was never really supporting my wrists and arms very well, I didn’t use cushions effectively enough.

We were talking about your brain and the affects that breastfeeding has on that.

Yeah, yeah. I think when you have a young baby you’re very tired anyway, you’re losing sleep in the daytime and theres a lot of new stresses and strains to get used to, and the thing I hadn’t appreciated was that breastfeeding is another physical strain and it takes a lot out of you that you, you maybe don’t realise, certainly with my first child as he got bigger, in the last month or two before he was weaned onto solid food, the amount of milk he was taking from me got bigger and bigger and I became more and more addled, I was physically tired but also, you know, slightly deranged, slightly non-focussed, not able to…

Thinking through cotton wool? [Laughs].

…Yes not able to make sense whatsoever, thinking in a complete fuzz, and I think I realised in the end that it was the breastfeeding that was making me feel like that because his sleep had actually improved by then, and it was, it was the breastfeeding that was keeping me feeling fuzzy. And I guess you just have to live through it, but it helps to recognise it, it helps to know that that’s going to happen because I think I was puzzled that I felt so exhausted and I didn’t really know why.

Has it happened this time?

This time I do feel exhausted and I think that’s because I’m feeding two, two at a time, and I was warned by the health visitor that feeding twins exclusively myself would be a physical drain, much more than feeding one. So this time I was more prepared for it I think and so it bothers me slightly less, plus the lack of sleep is less of a worry, when you’re used to getting up at six in the morning with a toddler then, waking with the babies at six in the morning doesn’t feel like anything. So usually I only have one night feed because six in the morning, it doesn’t feel like a night feed any more whereas with my first child that felt like it’s still the middle of the night.

I think it, breastfeedings not changed my figure too much. It’s changed the way I look at my figure, I’m not that bothered any more, I’m probably about a stone and a half heavier than I used to be, I used to be very thin and now I’m quite conscious that I don’t want to follow these diets that I used to follow, that I’ve got to have a nutritionally balanced diet, for Graces sake as well as mine. But I’m quite comfortable with that, it’s almost like my body now does what it’s meant to do. Breasts are designed to breastfeed babies and that’s exactly what my body’s now doing. Occasionally, Grace went through this phase of having a night time booby and a daytime booby, and one would swell up like during the day and one would be really small, and they’d be quite lopsided, and I just kind of laugh at it [laughs] it’s not worth getting upset about, in fact I quite like it, I used to think it was, it was quite sweet that Grace had decided which one shed feed on during the day and which one shed feed on during the night, and that was the result [laughs]. But I miss sometimes having nice matching underwear, because I’ve got breastfeeding bras on. You can have matching underwear if you want it’s just not as easy to breastfeed because you can get bras that clip down and they are, they are nice to have, they’re not essential and you can make them yourself, but they are if you can afford to splash out on one or two, and they are nice.

I suppose I was, have always been quite active, you know, going to the gym and doing exercise, and, in pregnancy and in childbirth and then just those few weeks after giving birth, for me I just feel really unfit, I really do, and I feel I’m not strong enough to, do the holding and perhaps it’s because I have a toddler as well, so breastfeeding lying down was, is a life saver for me, and in fact even during the day I often lie down to feed my baby because it just is more, less stressful on my body and perhaps as I get fitter I will feel more comfortable feeding sitting again, and [laughs] even cooking and feeding at the same time, as you surprise yourself you have to do, but there is something about fitness and I think more support should be given to women getting fit after childbirth because it’s a very physically demanding job, being a mother.

So when did you start exercising again after the birth of the baby?

Right, well for my first baby [laughs], it was probably six months before I started, doing my workouts, I have my own routines that I do at home. With this time it was much easier with my c-section, perhaps I was more confident having had one before, the situation in which I decided to have a c-section was totally different as well, because the baby was healthy and I am exercising already. I started about six weeks, and in fact I found the six week period when you can’t drive, you’re supposed to be not driving, very long and I went and begged the GP to have a letter to be able to drive and asked him about exercising and he was very cautious which is normal possibly but I went back to swimming and now I’m doing my normal exercise routines that I was doing and as a result I feel better in myself, I feel like I’m getting stronger and I think everybody benefits around me because of that, and reclaiming my body as well is quite important, so although I enjoy the breastfeeding which is an act of giving, I enjoy as well reclaiming my body after a childbirth, by getting stronger again and getting back into shape. That’s very important for me and I think it’s a balance that I enjoyed last time I was really unfit for a long time, this time I’m fitter and I’m much, I feel much better in myself because of that, because when I exercise I feel I’m doing something for myself, and when I feed I’m doing something for my baby and there is a good balance there so that’s very important for me.

Tell me a little bit more about the impact of breastfeeding on you, you said it makes you sleepy and relaxed, what else does it do for you?

Really close to my baby, I really like the experience, it is a really bonding experience, and it is really, to think that you’re their sole, provider is, it’s fulfilling I suppose in a way, especially when they’re only on breastfeeds, only ever been breastfed and they’re not on any solids and you know that they’re totally reliant on you for everything, at first it can be overwhelming when you’re just getting used to it all, and it can be, you want to escape it, when you’re, the other side of it when you’re, they’re weaning and their starting to go mixed foods and you look at it slightly differently. I think it is a positive experience, yeah sometimes you think, ‘Oh I wish I could just get my body back and not have to wear the breastfeeding bras and, pads and, have a big chest’ [laughs] all these kind of things but, the pros outweigh all of that, it’s nice, that my favourite time of the night is the end of the day giving him his last feed and, him being all full up and satisfied and sound asleep that’s nice, and I don’t like it if he doesn’t take a full feed because I feel that somethings amiss and I find that really a positive yeah.

What about your figure? Has breastfeeding had any impact on your figure?

I think to begin with, once with both children theres, I think it helps, it does help everything, go back, like if your stomach muscles sooner than if you didn’t breastfeed, but I think for me I will, didn’t lose the weight with my daughter until I stopped breastfeeding, until I don’t know if it was because it gave me a bigger appetite, or because I didn’t go into a really strict diet, because I don’t want to diet while I’m breastfeeding, I don’t want to.

Why?

You’re always told not to diet, not to cut your intake of food, not to do any faddy diets because it can affect the quality of your milk, and some of the diets are just, I’ve done in the past have been drinks, you know, food replacements and I wouldn’t want to do that while I’m, I wouldn’t want to take anything that I’m not a hundred percent sure it wouldn’t be healthy for my son, so I don’t know, I think I’ve just put him first and just made sure I’ve been eating healthily. So I think that’s probably, has delayed me getting my figure back, I know for other people they get their figure back quicker because they’re breastfeeding, but I definitely didn’t with my daughter, and I don’t expect to with my son either, I seem to retain the weight round my middle and my chest until I’ve finished breastfeeding. I do find that hard and that’s the only reason why I would be tempted to give up sooner, so that I could give up and then get on a really strict diet, but it’s too selfish I wouldn’t do that, because that, have to carry on and I dare say I could be stricter with what I eat, but I find I have an appetite when I’m feeding as well so it’s, it is difficult.

So you eat more?

I think I could starve, for me to lose weight I have to really starve myself and really exercise hard, I don’t lose weight by just eating three meals a day I don’t, I have to have no bread for breakfast and lunch, you know really be hungry is the only way I lose weight and exercise hard. I just, I can’t do that when I’m feeding I just feels it’s, that’s more important just now it’s such a short time, but I have to keep telling myself that, I don’t always think that, every now and then I, like with going back to work I panic about that because I’m not going to get into any of my work clothes but.
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I came home from the hospital with this big, like a goody bag of painkillers [laughs] and, each one had directions on the packet, take so many within so many hours and, I left the hospital late morning and I’d already taken some painkillers that they were handing to me, so I had to phone them up and say, ‘What have I had today already?’ and I didn’t know could you take this with this? And could you, you know, and I said to my husband, ‘I can’t do it, I can’t do it, I can’t work it out’ I just couldn’t, my brain just would not work and he said, ‘Well look you take this one, you take this one and I said, ‘You do it.

Yeah so I said to my husband, ‘Please you do it I can’t cope with this, you do it’ and he made a little chart on the computer and filled in right you can have this at this time and this at that time [laughs], and because I don’t even remember how many different painkillers I had but they didn’t really seem important either I was just so focussed on, I have to feed my baby. Other people can change his nappy, change his clothes, wash him, do whatever, I must feed my baby and I was just very single minded about it.

I went to the clinic on and off for about five to six weeks, what happened was that I eventually got the latch right but I had a couple of other hiccoughs along the way, and one was that I developed mastitis a couple of times and I suspect that was because I hadn’t got the latch quite right, and that was a bit of a, again that kind of took my confidence away because once I thought I had my latch right then something else happened and, you know, I have these horrible painful red sore breasts and I had to take antibiotics and I felt dreadful and, you know, I just needed to go back and get a bit more emotional support I think if nothing else, but that sorted itself out. However I think after about, when she was about eight weeks old I noticed that she wasn’t really putting on weight quite as well as she ought to have been. Shed dipped down quite badly in those first two weeks which I assume was because I was breastfeeding her so badly but then shed started to pick up again but she never quite followed a centile, she started sort of crossing over centiles going downwards, and that was very worrying. When I went to the breastfeeding clinic they were, they were very good about sort of talking me through what exactly I was doing, you know, sort of routine-wise how many feeds she was getting a day and at that stage she was getting about eight feeds a day but she still didn’t seem to be getting enough milk at each time, so they suggested a sort of variety of strategies to increase my breastmilk production. So what I first did was I started expressing at the end of each feed so that I’d have a bit of extra breast stimulation so I would feed her, express, and then give her whatever expressed milk I had at the end of each feed so she was having sort of a double feed if you like. And I did that for about two or three weeks and it was very time-consuming and quite draining because, you know, it’s bad enough I think feeding every three hours through the night but when you also have to be up and expressing and then giving her the bottle and sterilising the bottles and so on and so forth it got, very tiring. Then what happened was at, but that still didn’t really seem to be working and again I started getting quite upset because I thought, you know, ‘What more can I do?’ so I started topping her up with formula, I’d breastfeed her and then give her a bottle of formula, and shed have sort of between say two and four ounces after a breastfeed and then at the same time I started taking some Domperidone which is what the breastfeeding clinic recommended, to increase my breastmilk production. And the Domperidones actually an anti-nausea drug but it has the side, the side effect of increasing lactation, so I was taking one tablet three times a day for about two weeks. And it did actually increase my breastmilk production so that I was getting more each time I expressed at the end of a breastfeed and you know so there I was, I went back to breastfeeding, expressing and giving her the expressed milk, and that would seem to settle her actually. Once my breastmilk production had gone up a bit her own growth picked up a bit and she went back onto the centile that she was born on and has followed that ever since, so that’s what I’ve continued doing, shes down to six feeds a day but I breastfeed her and top her off with expressed milk at the end of each feed, and it sounds a bit of a bother but it’s worked now for the last two months and shes incredibly settled and is happy with her six feeds a day and she sleeps through the night and I just don’t want to rock the boat so I think I’m just going to just continue doing that until it’s time to wean her.

Are you still taking the Domperidone?

No I stopped taking the Domperidone after about two weeks, but I really do think it had an effect, I noticed it myself, I mean I could see the effect i

Okay. What about going out at night? When did you start? Were you able to ever do that? How did you manage it?

[Daughter] was quite predictable at night after a couple of months so I always had the opportunity, she would leave maybe four and a half hours in between she would be very fussy and things around seven o’clock, seven to maybe nine o’clock but after that she would settle down and be down for maybe you know four, four and a half hours and so I could always guarantee that I could have left her for that time and gone out, and I know that a lot of people had said that breastfeeding was tying in that way but for me I could have always done that and I had that opportunity for a long time and never ever used it, I never wanted to leave her I never it just didn’t cross my mind to leave her when I did get invited out I knew that this was a time when [daughter] needed me and, I’d hate the thought of her waking up and me not being there and not only that but, how long was it going to last for and realistically it’s over now and it wasn’t a very long time and in the grand scale of how long [daughter]’s going to be with me that was just nothing at all and so staying in just didn’t you know just didn’t matter at all. I also, I mean I went out a lot with her at night so I would feed her put her down in you know in the pushchair keep her right next to me at any point when she woke up I could feed her I could go out have a couple of glasses of white wine we could go to a restaurant we could you know socialise with friends still go round to friends’ houses and I would always take her with me and that way she could feed whenever she wanted to and she always knew that I was there and now I think that’s been a hundred per cent positive because she knows that I would never ever leave her and even I’ve spent one night away from her and on that night she asked for me when I would have normally been there but she was never upset because you know I asked my sister who was looking after her you know if she ever asked for me tell her, ‘Mummy will be back very soon mummy’s thinking of you mummy loves you’ the things that I would have told her had I been there and so, it was just reassuring for her and she knew that I would you know I was always coming back so she just got on and did it.