Yesterday we woke up many reading an inspiring but hard story in The World with cancer and breastfeeding as protagonists. Tita, a woman who had to have a breast removed because of breast cancer, and who had been told that breastfeeding with one breast would be very difficult, had three children after that.
A child first, and after him two twins, to whom has managed to breastfeed by going against the tide, with the help of experienced lactation consultants and thanks to their determination and "stubbornness", all with one breast. That? How? It's possible? Breastfeeding with only one breast?
They told him he could not breastfeed
The current figures say that only one in four children reaches six months being exclusively breastfed. In many cases because at four months the maternity leave ends, in many cases because breastfeeding is not going well, something fails, and the babies end up drinking artificial milk.
If this happens when women have two breasts to breastfeed, and most explain that "they left the breast because they did not produce enough," logic says that with a chest it will be much harder. After suffering from cancer twice and having her breast removed, she became pregnant. They told her that with one breast she could not breastfeed, but she decided to inform herself and try: Why not? And what did he lose trying?
He did it with Felix, the eldest, and he did it with the twins, Hector and Eloy, although with them he had to have an almost absolute dedication by day and supplement a little with artificial milk at night.
Breastfeeding with only one breast?
She got it because she was totally determined to do it, because she had help at all times (knowing that she started with a disadvantage, both the family and the consultants turned to help her as much as necessary) and because if the babies take the breast well, it is possible with only one.
In western countries it is not usually breastfeed with only one breast, at least not by maternal decision. Mothers offer both breasts to the baby and it is he (or she), who sometimes opts for one and comes to reject the other. The reason? It depends. It may be that one leaves more milk than the other, that one is given better than the other, that has an otitis and hurts less with one breast than with the other, which has a clavicle fracture and rejects the one in which his collarbone is underneath, which in one breast tastes better (when they breastfeed more than one breast than another, breastfeeding breast milk less tends to accumulate sodium and milk tastes a little more salty), which gets used to the left breast (In addition to the breast in which the heart is, the mothers tend to give more than the left so that the right hand is left free, which is the dominant one in the majority of the population), than by the shape of the nipple ( they don't have to be the same) you take one better than the other or you simply choose to breastfeed from one and not the other, without being able to know why. By the way, and this is important, if the baby sucked well from both breasts and suddenly rejects one of them very exaggeratedly and sustained over time, it could be because of a tumor in that chest.
The case is that it happens, and women get ahead because production adapts. The breast of which the baby does not breastfeed produces less and less milk and the other more and more, following the rule of "more suction, more production; less suction, less production".
The most important hit in this regard is aesthetic: a chest is visually bigger than the other (Women usually fix it by filling in the bra, only on the side where the baby does not breastfeed), other problems being the possible engorgement or mastitis in the breast of the breastfeeding (while producing milk, if the baby does not take out and neither does the mother).
And in other countries?
If we leave the western world, if we move away from developed countries, breastfeeding with only one breast is more common because it is the same mothers who choose that option. With usually ported children, while working, they choose to give only the left breast to have the right free (or give the right to have the left free in case the dominant hand is the left).
It is even known of some tribe whose food is largely based on hunting and who use the bow for it. Being like this, choose to give only one breast, the left, so that the right does not increase in volume and can continue holding the arrow and pointing without interference.
What to do if you only want to breastfeed from one breast?
After explaining what happens and that when it happens it doesn't have to be the end, because the production adapts to the baby's requirements, you should know that there is always something to do or try to try to solve the problem:
- Try to know the cause and solve it: If it is an otitis, the clavicle or the different form of the nipple, it is tried to solve the cause so that it sucks indistinctly of both chest.
- Extract milk in the meantime: While trying to take the other breast, and as long as it does not, it can be a good solution to try to maintain the production of the breast that does not breastfeed by extracting milk. In this way, in addition, the salty taste of milk that has accumulated more sodium can be reduced by not being extracted frequently.
- Give that chest after the first: As it is a chest that rejects, it is not a good idea to give it first because if you arrive hungry you will be nervous and probably cry, without getting any progress. It is worth trying to offer that chest when you have eaten a little, so that you can take it easier, or at least try (mom), to see if you want.
- Try a teat cup: If the cause of not catching is that the nipple is different and, despite the insistence and trying it in many ways, the baby does not catch that breast, it can be tested with a teat cup in case it is better caught and perform effective suction.
- Do not despair: if neither with those, if there is no way, we will only have to respect the baby's decision and stop insisting. It is a possible solution because sometimes, when you stop insisting, the baby ends up catching a good day for not knowing very well what reason. If it does not, it does not. Then special care must be taken so that breastfeeding with only one breast is well established and the baby is gaining weight well. Also, take care that the breast with which you do not breastfeed does not make an infection. There are women who choose to continue extracting milk, in case one day the baby decides to return, to avoid these problems and for the future, if he has decided to save milk for when he starts working.
Photos | iStock
In Babies and more | "Babies who do not receive human milk are more likely to get sick," IBCLC interview Ana Charfén, What a shame that most of our mothers cannot help with breastfeeding problems, Tips for first-time parents: problems with breastfeeding
