Anyone breastfeeding?

Wondering if any of you wonderful sisters had your hysterectomy (or are planning to)while breastfeeding an infant....
If so - how did you handle it - what type of anesthesia did you have - how soon did you resume nursing and did you pump while at the hospital?
I have a 4 month old son and don't want to give it up.
Don't have my surgery scheduled yet - want to hear the gyn oncologists opinion on waiting a few months (had adenocarcinoma in situ removed by cone biopsy with very clear margins -- so perhaps I can wait a bit????)
Thank you so much to all of the sisters for sharing your time and your stories.

I've nursed 5 babies, but I haven't had surgery while nursing. I had a friend do it though. She had to pump a few days of milk and toss it because of the anesthesia. I know she had a bit of trouble with nursing the baby after the surgery because he didn't like the taste, but she stuck with it and everything worked out. It took a few weeks of trying to nurse the baby, then feeding him with a bottle after nursing so he wouldn't go hungry and gradually weaning him back off the bottle. She had an older baby though, at least 6-8 months. He was mostly still nursing at the time. The part she had trouble with was that he was a fast eater and he grew to like how fast the bottle fed him and was frustrated with going back to nursing.

Probably the best thing to do is try to pump and freeze the milk before the surgery so the baby will stay on breastmilk. You can keep pumping during your hospital stay to keep up your milk supply and not worry about baby being hungry if you have to toss it. You'll likely have to rebuild your milk supply a bit. It may take a lot of effort on your part, but worth it if your baby is still exclusively nursing and you want to continue.

Expect that it will take some time to get back into your nursing pattern. Even if you are able to wait even a few months when the baby is older and eating a bit of solid food, it might be easier on the both of you. If you can't wait, get as much milk frozen as possible if your baby doesn't like formula (none of my kids would touch it!).

I hope things work out!

Jen

Hi,

Here's a Hystersisters' article about breastfeeding post op:

https://www.hystersisters.com/vb2/article_97142.htm

Hope this helps....