Katie Piper has opened up about these common breastfeeding struggles

Katie Piper has opened up about her breastfeeding struggle to feed her newborn daughter.

The inspiring author and presenter welcomed her second daughter Penelope back in December, but admits that nursing her baby has been difficult.

Katie was speaking about her breastfeeding experience at the launch of Tommee Tippee’s new Perfect Prep Day & Night, before taking to Instagram to share more details.

“I started out breastfeeding exclusively,” she wrote on Instagram. “Initially it was a struggle and painful until we found out P was in fact tongue tied – after she had the procedure to snip this things became so much easier,” she revealed.

Tongue tie is the name given to the condition where the piece of skin under the tongue (properly called the lingual frenulum) is too short or too tight or too thick and so pulls on the tongue, limiting its natural, free movement and making it difficult to feed.

It is believed that tongue-tie affects around 4-11% of newborn babies, so the condition is fairly common. Though it is sometimes diagnosed during a baby’s routine newborn check, it is not always easy to spot.

Though the majority of babies can be helped to adapt perfectly well around their frenulum, some go on to need a simple procedure where specially-designed scissors are used to snip the rogue piece of skin under the tongue which is hampering its free movement.

Though Katie’s baby Penelope did have the procedure, the mum-of-two continued to have difficulty breastfeeding.

“A few weeks down the line I began struggling again putting it down to tiredness,” she explained. “After speaking to a breastfeeding counsellor I realised I just couldn’t produce enough milk to fully feed her, she gave me some great advice and reassurance that this was just a fact not a failure and I introduced formula alongside the milk I could express or directly breast feed.”

Not producing enough milk is a common breastfeeding problem.

The NHS has some suggestions for breastfeeding mums about increasing their milk supply including expressing some breast milk after feeds once breastfeeding is established to help build up your supply and offering both breasts at each feed and alternate which breast you start with.

They also suggest asking your midwife, health visitor or breastfeeding specialist to watch your baby feeding. “They can offer guidance and support to help you properly position and attach your baby to the breast,” the site explains.

For Katie it was the introduction of the Tommee Tippee perfect prep machine that helped improve her feeding journey.

“It’s been amazing – particularly at 3am when I’m a zombie- the machine makes the feed up to the correct measurements and temperature all in less than 2 minutes,” she wrote on Instagram.

“For me that meant no going down stairs to boil the kettle, waking the dog up and disturbing belle- also being able to feed P straight away and not having to wait for the feed to cool down- and not worrying about burning her has been life changing- crazy as it sounds just getting those extra ten minutes sleep and not faffing around has been a god send!”

Katie isn’t the only celebrity to open up about breastfeeding struggles. Back in December Chrissy Teigen shared a photo of her uneven boobs that she believes was caused by breastfeeding.

And new mum Serena Williams recently made an emotional breastfeeding confession before asked other parents for their own experiences and feedback.

While last year Peter Andre’s wife Emily also spoke out about her son’s own tongue-tie which affected her own breastfeeding journey.

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