Baby loss and reducing breastmilk

The hardest thing for me after losing our baby boy during my labour in May 2009 was coping with my milk coming in. I've already nursed four children and our toddler daughter had just weaned about a month and a half before our infant son was born sleeping. My milk coming in was like a terrible aftermath to the single most devastating event in my life. It was an excruciating reminder of our loss and my empty arms. Just as I was powerless to stop the events of birthing a dead baby, I couldn't stop my body from preparing to nurture my angel with mother's milk. Agony. Sheer agony, mentally and physically.

My milk came in quickly and I was terribly engorged and distraught; just when I would have liked nothing better than to lie in my husband's arms and sob, my breasts were so hard and swollen I couldn't even hug him or our other children when I got home without our baby George in my arms. The next week I was very swollen and sore; hugging people at baby George's visitation and funeral Mass was a mixed blessing because if they embraced me too hard it hurt my chest.

I was confused by nurses in hospital, some of whom were adamant that I needed a tight bra or to bind my breasts. From everything I'd read in my years mothering, this isn't advisable. Some visitors assumed I was injected with medication to dry up my milk, but this isn't done in Canada any more according to nurses, my midwives, and doctors because side effects include stroke and heart attack. No thank you to drugs as my way out then! I was dismayed when I searched the Internet to find how little information there was online to help bereaved mothers reduce their breastmilk and alleviate pain; anything I found seemed to advocate binding, which would add pain to women already devasted by baby loss.

I was librarian of our La Leche League (a mother-to-mother breastfeeding support group) and immediately called my friend, a leader and lactation consultant, for her advice. I'd also worked part-time in an administrative capacity for Community Health, and one of the well baby nurses came to visit me when she heard that I'd lost George. Their advice included:

• wear a loose fitting bra; your breasts need some support as they grow heavy with milk, but tight or binding material may damage sensitive breast tissue and could result in mastitis, a painful blocked duct condition that often requires antibiotics (and without a baby to nurse more frequently to clear the duct - shudder)
• drink only to thirst; drinking copious amounts of liquid will give your body more liquid with which to make more milk (but be careful not to dehydrate either)
• if you are very engorged and uncomfortable, express some milk - but only a little - in a hot shower or bath; expressing too much milk will of course make your body think it needs to keep producing more milk because breastfeeding operates on supply and demand
• take ibuprofen every four hours with approval from your healthcare provider to reduce swelling and inflammation
• some people debate whether this works, while other women swear by it: get a cold cabbage and take two leaves to insert over each breast in a loose-fitting bra; the cold is soothing and helps alleviate discomfort

My midwives, three wonderful, wonderful women, told me to get Sage tea. Sage discourages milk production. Essentially, Sage is the natural opposite to the herb Fenugreek, which will increase milk production. My husband was unsuccessful trying to find Sage leaves in bulk spice aisles or Sage tea at nearby health stores. One of the midwives made it her mission to find me some and found a box of organic Sage Leaf by Flora. The company is based in Burnaby, BC and their number is 1-888-436-6697.

I immediately brewed Sage tea and after one day of regularly sipping it I felt some relief. My midwives and my LLL friend and I considered trying to relactate my toddler, but had she nursed unsuccessfully it could have been more painful as my body would have made more milk thinking I did have a nursling.

A few weeks ago I met a woman who said I may have found pumping milk to donate to the human milk bank comforting. I truly hadn't thought of it and I would have considered that. I know that the application process in Canada can be arduous, but I could have pumped and frozen milk. I don't have much milk left now, two months since our baby George died. I regret that this never occurred to me. It would have been comforting to donate breastmilk to nourish another baby.

Strangely, my engorgement with milk and cabbage did result in my husband and I laughing for the first time after the shock of losing our infant. When I was in distress and so uncomfortable, my poor husband of course really wanted to help. I said, "I need some cabbage." He immediately set off for the grocery store and came back with....four heads of cabbage! I had been crying when he walked in, mourning our baby and in such pain with my poor swollen breasts, but started to laugh when he walked in carting all these leafy green cabbages. "Why on earth did you buy four?!" I asked, collapsing in giggles through my tears. But of course, he had no idea why I needed cabbage. And if he could help me, bless him, he was going to help me as much as he could and he certainly didn't want to come home with insufficient cabbage. He thought I was going to cook and eat the cabbage (or perhaps bathe in it was the teasing comment of my dear friend Paula!).