Hellobee

One thing that absolutely shocked me when I first started researching surrogacy is the fact that a mother who has not given birth can induce lactation and breastfeed her baby. Before I unexpectedly became pregnant myself (five weeks before our surrogate!), I spent some time considering this idea. Like just about every parenting decision, this one is incredibly personal but I’d like to share some of my own thoughts on the topic, as well as share some of the logistics of inducing lactation as I understand them.

While I first thought the concept of inducing lactation was pretty cool, I was surprised that my emotions toward it actually turned quite negative when I really starting thinking through it. There were two primary reasons for this.

The first was emotional and stemmed from the fact that I had suffered through over three years of infertility treatment and had become increasingly frustrated by my body. I won’t delve again into all of the details of our struggles with IVF and my uterus, but it seemed that my body was hell-bent on never allowing conception and pregnancy to take place. By the time I had resigned myself to surrogacy, I was totally and completely worn out by the pregnancy battle that I had unsuccessfully waged against my body. I didn’t want any more disappointment and fights, and this meant that I was very turned off by the idea of inducing lactation. I feared that it would be yet another opportunity for me to watch my body disappoint me. And the absolute last thing that I wanted once I finally saw my baby born was to be fighting my body. That is simply not where I wanted my emotional focus to be.

The second reason I was negative toward the idea of induced lactation were the drugs. This again stemmed from my years spent in infertility. I once counted up all of the injections that I took throughout my infertility journey and it came to 289 shots. TWO-HUNDRED-EIGHTY-NINE! Throughout the course of treatment, I injected myself with 11 different kinds of medications. Including pills and inserts, the number climbs to 32 types of medications, and that does not include 10 other vitamins and supplements that I also took. After all of that, the thought of introducing even more medications and supplements into my body was extremely off-putting. I worried about the impact of all of the medications on my body in the long-term. The idea of returning to my “natural state” was incredibly attractive, and I thought, healthier.

I’ve spoken to quite a few other intended mothers about inducing lactation and it seems that my negative emotions about the idea are not uncommon. But several women do decide to give it a try, and I applaud them for that decision as well! Some intended mothers suffer through similar infertility journeys but instead of wanting to stop fighting like I did, they want to try to induce lactation to take some control back. One friend told me that she tried it because she felt that it was something actionable she could do while she awaited the birth (the process of inducing lactation takes many months and overlaps with the pregnancy). Other moms want to provide breastmilk and would rather it come from them than from their surrogate (or maybe their surrogate is not interested in providing breastmilk).

All of these are really good reasons for trying to induce lactation. But there are a couple of things that I want to point out, namely that inducing lactation is not easy and it is not the only way to bond with your baby. The reason that I mention this is because no matter who I talk to, mothers who decided not to induce lactation and those that do decide to try it all agreed that it was frustrating that people jumped to the faulty assumption that it was a panacea for bonding with the child and a seemingly “easy” thing to do.

While I did not try to induce lactation myself, I am told that there are a few different ways to go about it. The first and most basic approach is to invest in a heavy-duty breast pump and just start pumping. With no hormones or medications involved, this approach is the least invasive but it also is the least likely to be successful.

Women generally find more success if they talk to a doctor about inducing lactation and get prescriptions to help. I understand that there are two approaches here, one being a long protocol that should be started 5-6 months before birth and that has the highest success rate. High-hormone birth control pills are prescribed to simulate pregnancy, and a drug called domperidone is taken multiple times a day while a breast pump is used to mimic breastfeeding. Apparently, domperidone is not FDA approved for this purpose so it can be challenging to get access to the drug; I’ve also heard that it is associated with heart problems so that is a risk worth considering.

Some intended mothers prefer to take another approach, a short accelerated protocol, because they find it difficult to trust in the pregnancy’s viability so early in the pregnancy (the long protocol takes 5-6 months and so has to be started late in the first trimester/early in the second trimester). One woman I know who was successful inducing lactation started the process right around the 24 week mark, after the all-important 20-week anatomy ultrasound. I’m told that the medications used for the short protocol are the same as those used for the long protocol but that the latter has a higher success rate.

Regardless of the method of inducing lactation, it is probably obvious by now that it is definitely not easy. It is not a matter of simply putting a child to the breast once she/he is born. As any woman who has breastfed knows, success requires a great deal of commitment, pain and frustration. Adding medications and hormones and months of pumping before the birth into the process makes it that much harder. When I was considering inducing lactation, I wished that people better appreciated the difficulty of the process before they jumped to the conclusion that I would try it and it would be so great and natural for me and my baby.

I also received some pressure from friends and family to try inducing lactation for bonding purposes. I will admit that I worried about bonding with my baby a lot throughout the surrogacy process. But for me personally, I never associated breastfeeding with bonding. My daughter was brought to my chest immediately for skin-to-skin time following her birth from our surrogate. I felt so bonded to her in that moment, and also when I cut her umbilical cord. But I don’t regret that I didn’t try to breastfeed her; to me, skin-to-skin was enough and also reduced my stress level and amplified my joy and awe in meeting her. I’ve talked to other intended mothers who did decide to induce lactation and none of them believe that it helped them to bond with their babies more than other methods. There are so many other ways to bond with your baby and breastfeeding is certainly not the only one.

For women who are considering inducing lactation, I was provided a few resources by my friends who have tried it. As I’ve only scratched the surface here on the topic, I’ll leave you with some of their recommendations.

• Facebook group called “Inducing Lactation Support Group for Intended Mothers through Surrogacy”
• general information through asklenore.com
• Most importantly, they recommended getting in touch with a lactation consultant who has successfully helped other women induce lactation.

If you choose to try inducing lactation, I wish you the best of luck! If you decide it’s not for you, I assure you that your baby will be happy and healthy and bonded to you regardless!

Everyday moments with Baby Audrey have tightly bonded us.