Understanding D-Mer

Breastfeeding was never something I had considered doing but during my pregnancy I found myself thinking about it. The more I fell in love with the little boy inside me, the more I wanted to give him the absolute best and from around 20 weeks pregnant I had all but decided I would definitely be breastfeeding.  

The physical act itself was never an issue for me and Theodore, he latched on perfectly within an hour of being born and we haven't looked back since. However, I started to notice that during the majority of feeds I wasn't feeling the warm, happy feeling that most women talk about. I was feeling more of an anxiousness on and off during feeds. It was like a feeling of dread in my stomach. 

At first I put it down to hormones, I had just given birth after all and the feeling would disappear completely when I wasn't feeding. Each moment of motherhood outside of feeding was so perfect and I was deliriously happy and so I knew it was definitely not PND related, 

I was never ashamed of these feelings and I told Tom about them from the start, his support was nothing short of perfect. He'd wake up for every night feed to talk to me and keep me distracted but I still knew the feeling was there. 

I started to feel like I was missing out on the breastfeeding experience and after googling and confirmation from a breastfeeding specialist, it turns out I suffer with D-Mer.

Dysphoric Milk Ejection Reflex is a condition affecting lactating women that is characterized by an abrupt dysphoria, or negative emotions, that occur just before milk release and continuing not more than a few minutes.

Apparently this is quite rare and if I think about it long enough I do feel sad, I wish I felt warm and fuzzy during breastfeeding, even when I don't feel the dysphoria, I don't feel the euphoria, I just feel normal. These feelings are now beginning to subside, it's now less common for me to feel anxious during a feed than it is to feel normal. I'm incredibly happy about this because a couple of times, I did want to just quit and thats not what I want to happen. I adore being able to feed my son and see him thriving and growing so well because of it. This alone makes any feeling worth pushing through. 

I'm thankful that I have a great support system to talk to if need be, I know that this will never progress into something more serious as im intelligent and aware enough of my own limits and what I can handle. ☺️ I just wanted to write a little post on this to maybe try and spread a little awareness, this is not something I'd ever heard of before and a lot of women suffer through this not knowing why they feel the way they do. 

It's normal, it's just a chemical imbalance and it will pass ☺️