Pen Pal: Tube feeding is feeding

“Are you breast feeding or bottle feeding”?

A question so many new mothers are asked. Shudder, shudder.

If you were not tube feeding you might be wondering; is this a ‘breast is best’ or a ‘formula will make them sleep better’ judgemental angle? So, what happens when the answer is neither? What would the reaction be then?

I’d never heard of tube feeding until I was pregnant. I found out my baby may require it because they may be too unwell to feed via boob or bottle. It’s not something I ever imagined. There are beautiful photographs out there of parents feeding at the breast or clocking eyes with their little one as they bottle feed but the tube feeding photos? You don’t see as many of those.

My feeding journey was emotional at times. Before becoming a mother, I never knew that how I fed my baby would impact my feelings of mothering so much, so early on, despite my awareness of the opinionated breast or bottle club that existed.

Breast. Bottle. Tube. Pump. I’ve done them all.

The NHS encourage breastfeeding and in the first week of my son’s life I was allowed to breastfeed alongside his NG tube. Yes, you read right, ‘allowed’. As the weeks passed by my son needed an NG tube more and more. He lives with Congenital Heart Disease (CHD) and the nature of his diagnosis meant that in the early weeks post birth he’d struggle to breathe and struggle to feed. You can imagine how difficult to digest that was to hear.

First, we were told to reduce breastfeeding as this was the most strenuous way of feeding for a baby. The sucking motions of the breast and swallowing was going to be too hard on his heart to cope with before it was repaired. We could carry on with the bottle which would be less work for him but eventually even that had to stop. I was allowed comfort sucking at the breast to help skin to skin, supply and pumping but strictly no longer than 5 minutes a time. This soon reduced as various health care professionals disagreed among themselves about it. It was hard and not many people around me could understand the emotions I experienced about feeding my newborn. Choice was taken away, though for the right intention, until his heart defects were repaired.

I’d read about responsive feeding and this was something I always wanted to do. Tube feeding and hospital schedules gave a whole new definition to this. Feeding meant sticking to rigid time schedules. There was a delicate balance between how much milk we could feed him that wouldn’t overwhelm his lungs but would help him to put on the weight required for surgery to mend his heart.

It was responsive to his illness but not responsive in a way I imagined I would offer him milk. For comfort. For warmth. For cuddles as well as food.

Tube feeding meant our flat was full of syringes. We had late night trips to A&E to reinsert the tube. My husband learnt how to do this, while I struggled to bear hearing my boy scream at the hospital during the procedure. We both learned how to tube feed though. We took turns with the two or three hourly schedule.

We did what we needed to do to feed our son.

Tube feeding is feeding. It deserves recognition and acknowledgement for however long a baby, child or adult, is tube fed for. Tube feeding helped keep our boy alive.

You can hear from Abbie on CHD, tube feeding and more on her instagram and twitter pages. We are so grateful that Abbie chose to share her story with Feed. If you would like to share your feeding experience please get in touch #mamassupportmamas #bottlesboobsortubes