FEEDING ANNIE HELPED ME FOCUS
Pumping breast milk helped Sarah Heaphey’s daughter Annie grow stronger while in neonatal ICU
SARAH Heaphey from Dundalk had her baby Annie pre-term and Annie had to be cared for in the neonatal intensive care unit (NICU) for weeks.
In that time when Annie’s health hung in the balance, Sarah expressed her breastmilk so that Annie would have the best start she could.
‘My plan was to try my best and hope the breastfeeding worked,’ says Sarah.
‘I was booked in for the antenatal class in the hospital in January at around 33 weeks, there I learned about breastfeeding, the early days of milk coming in, some challenges and much more and thank god I did. I was there on the Thursday and then had Annie on the Monday. It was very unexpected she wasn’t due until March.
‘Annie had quite a lot of complications, she had Grade 3 intraventricular hemorrhage on her brain, it was a whirlwind on top of the shock of such an early labour. We spent weeks in the hospital including surgery at 28 days old in Temple Street.’
‘It was a scary time as Annie was in NICU, and I didn’t know what I could do. A nurse said the best thing you can do for her at the moment is give her your milk. It was very overwhelming at the time along with my baby being unwell. Shineen, the clinical midwife was so supportive, she got me a pump in no time and I was pumping straight away. I went into a pumping trance and was spending a huge amount of my time making sure I got as much milk as I could and establishing my supply. All the midwives were great, I got engorged and they really helped me through it. I was pumping every three hours 24 hours a day. My husband was a great support with this also as it can be a very lonely time when you’re up in the middle of the night and no baby there with you.
The aim was to get baby Annie to feed from the breast by her due date and at that stage she was feeding properly and doing well.
‘Her feeding came on no end after her surgery. The few days before going home, Shineen gave me a plan and cautioned that I’d be triple feeding for a while, it’s very easy to underestimate the amount of time that goes into that, between feeding her myself, doing top ups of breast milk in a bottle, pumping and sterilising.’
And Sarah was also able to help other mothers with vulnerable babies by donating her excess breast milk.
‘As I was pumping for six weeks when Annie was in hospital and she was on small amounts of milk compared to my supply I ended up with a huge supply of extra milk,’ she says. ‘ I donated over four litres of milk to the Human Milk Bank. I was so delighted to be able to do this, as I can only imagine the stress of a mother not being able to give her own milk under such difficult circumstances. It was a difficult process as I had to get bloods done, and found it hard to find someone to do them so I reached out to the hospital who were really helpful with it. It was really nice to get a letter recently to say that my milk had been used for some vulnerable babies.’
‘ Annie is thriving now at eight months and we recently got amazing news after her tough start in life. I’m delighted I breastfed for as long as I did, and I do think it benefited her no end. It gave me something to focus on, and was a major way to help her, while she was in hospital.
‘My advice for any mums going through a difficult situation with breastfeeding is to link in with anyone who might have gone through something similar. I found it very helpful to talk to other people. I got great support on my journey.’