Working as a midwife and expecting her first baby, Ballincollig-based Aimee Tebay was convinced she would be a natural at breastfeeding. “I had so much knowledge, so many skills. I thought 'I’m really good at helping mothers with breastfeeding so I’m going to be really good myself'.
I thought it’d come naturally to me.” But within 24 hours of Peter’s birth, Aimee was experiencing pain that would over the next few weeks become “excruciating”. She had “very damaged, cracked nipples” and no matter what position she fed Peter she could not get comfortable.
“I was in so much pain I was reluctant to put him on the breast. The public health nurse said he was growing a little slower than they’d like. I was probably missing his early feeding cues in those first weeks.
I found myself dreading breastfeeding and feeling guilty because I wasn’t enjoying my baby. “I couldn’t believe I was facing a real struggle with this. I remember saying to my partner, Mark ‘What if I can’t breastfeed my son? I mightn’t be able to’.
This, after looking forward to it so much.” Peter is now nine, and, looking back, Aimee believes her breastfeeding struggles started on the first day she put her baby to the breast. “I let him latch on any old way, so the nipple damage was caused on day one and it all went downhill from there.
” That she ended up breastfeeding her firstborn for three years, and that by the time he was nine weeks old she was finding breastfeeding “a.