I had to use a breast shield to get my baby to latch on

by Mia
(London)

When my baby was born she wouldn't latch on at all. She did all the right rooting behavior and was clearly wanting to breastfeed but her mouth wasn't opening wide enough.

We had so many different midwives over the course of the next few days trying to tell us how to do it and one in particular who actually took my daughter out of my arms, splashed water all over her face, got her really upset and then tried to push her head onto my breast. Needless to say that didn't work.

Finally we saw a lactation consultant through the hospital (who none of the midwives seemed to listen to for some reason) and she got us to line feed my daughter with some expressed colostrum while she sucked on my finger. It seemed that finally we had found someone who was giving us useful information.

The next feed we did she suggested a nipple shield and we did some baby led attachment. That was excellent and my daughter had her first proper breastfeed finally.

She's now six days old and since then we've not been able to get her to attach without the nipple shield, but I'm trying the baby led attachment each time and I'm sure that she'll soon figure it out and we can get some easier breastfeeding happening.