Pippa was born at the end of 2023. I had concerns about her feeding and thought she had a tongue tie like her brother had had.
We brought her home for one night and then we were taken to hospital in an ambulance as she had become quite poorly. Once in resus, Pippa was fitted with a nasogastric (NG) tube and that was where my pumping journey began- right there in resus watching my very poorly baby being worked on by a lot of doctors and nurses.
Pippa deteriorated and we got transferred to St George’s in London to be looked after in their neonatal unit. I continued to pump and once she was well enough Pippa had my milk via her NG tube. Once she’d improved further I could attempt breastfeeding again which was the most incredible feeling.
However, this didn’t last long as her oxygen saturations would plummet as she fed and I would have to unlatch her and let her oxygen recover before trying again and then inevitably using her NG tube to feed her.
Pippa had surgery when she was less than two weeks old and although this helped her breathing it was decided she was not safe to breastfeed. I was determined to continue to give her my milk so that was what she had- either thickened in a bottle or through her tube. I was lucky enough to have a very large supply of milk and was asked if I would like to donate some to the milk bank within the hospital. I feel so honoured to be able to have shared Pippa’s milk with some of the tiny or unwell babies who we met during our time there.
After four weeks, Pippa was able to come home and I continued to pump for her for nine months. I also donated to the Hearts Milk Bank during that time who supply hospital neonatal units who don’t have their own milk bank as well as families in the community. I have donated over 30litres between the two milk banks alongside exclusively feeding Pippa.
Exclusively pumping and bottle/tube feeding is a very different breastfeeding journey to the one I expected but I’m so proud of it. It took a while to get my head around how much stuff I needed to take in order to be able to feed Pippa and pump when we were out, and feeding her to sleep involved multiple syringes not the cosy cuddles I’d envisaged, but it is possible and we did it!
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