Author – Anonymous

Our twins were born at 34 weeks and spent 5 weeks in NICU/SCN, mainly learning how to feed. I had done the ABA breastfeeding course, and while I knew it wasn’t going to be easy, I felt well prepared. In the end, however, I had had an emergency c-section at 34 weeks, and wasn’t really with it after the birth.

As I didn’t have my babies physically with me, the hospital moved me to a gynae ward, rather than maternity, as the maternity ward was so full. At the time, I didn’t mind, but thinking back, it was not the right place for me to be. No one spoke to me about expressing colostrum etc. It wasn’t until I was wheeled down to NICU/SCN to see the babies that one of the nurses asked me if I had any to feed them with. I felt so stupid, and was quite angry with myself once I found out that I could hand express it and they could tube feed it to the babies. I knew the value of colostrum, but it never occurred to me to try to hand express it.

I went back up to the ward with a renewed sense of purpose, and basically demanded that someone come and show me how to hand express. As it was not a maternity ward, my request was quite low on their priority list, but eventually a nurse came and helped me. I called and orderly to request a wheelchair to get to the colostrum to babies, but by the time that was organised it was way past their feed time and they had had to give them some formula.

By then, the babies were 48 hours old and my milk was starting to come in. I started using the hospitals double electric pump and was soon producing good volumes of milk. I remember after I had had my first “decent” cuddle with Alexis, which lasted just over an hour, I was able to express 80 mls. Not bad for my third day!!!