I’m currently pregnant with my 2nd and due soon. I desperately want to breastfeed but had a horrible time trying with my first. I was kept in hospital for a week due to lots of blood loss so had lots of support but even that didn’t help. He latched at first and midwives told me everything was fine. By day 2 though, he was crying lots especially after feeding and I had a constant feeling that he was hungry. By day 3, he was screaming almost constantly and refusing to latch at all. Midwives eventually showed me how to hand express and use a pump but not one drop of colostrum or milk came. They explained that with traumatic births, sometimes that can happen, so I was left with no choice but to formula feed. I was advised to keep pumping or hand expressing regularly to encourage my milk to come in. It did eventually and I woke up to soaked sheets when he was 5 weeks old but, of course, he’d been bottle fed all that time and, I couldn’t get him to latch. Hand expressing and pumping was so slow that it would take an hour to get a few mouthfuls in a bottle for him. Eventually when I realised I was spending more time crying and worrying about breastfeeding than enjoying my beautiful baby, I decided enough was enough.

I am already worried though about baby 2. I’d heard that hand expressing from 37 weeks pregnant is a useful thing to do but, despite my best efforts, I haven’t been able to express so much as a drop. So worried that, yet again, there will be no milk there.

Has anyone been in a similar position? Is there anything I can do to encourage my milk to come in? Does anyone have any advice for the days straight after birth to help us get off to a good, positive start if I do have milk this time?