Photo: Eric Esteves
While birthing two babies gives us no right to declare expertise in any field, we wanted to share our real life experience of how our epidural affected our baby’s latch.
What Is A Latch?
Latching is how the baby attaches to the breast.
What Is An Epidural?
In non-medical terms, it’s a ridiculously long needle that is placed in your spine, numbing your body so that birthing is less painful.
While we can list so many terrible side effects from our epidural, in this post we will share how it relates to our child’s ability to breastfeed.
1. She Was Drugged
Our daughter seemed out of it. We know this was our first time meeting her (on this side), but my maternal instinct told me something was off.
2. She Was Weak
We had to help her open her mouth wide. Of course she didn’t nurse as soon as she came out the womb, but when she was ready to eat, she seemed very lethargic and out of it.
3. She Needed Instruction
She needed our help picking her up and bringing her to the breast. Then she also needed us to put the breast in her mouth. This may not seem like a big deal, but we could tell our daughter needed so much assistance her first moments of life.
In this post I share our baby's latch after a non-medicated home birth. Can you relate? How did your epidural impact your newborn's latch? Need to schedule a one-on-one? Use code: HEART2HEART.
Until next time...
Love The Journey,
If you haven't already. Check out the trailer of The Business Of Being Born