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Here is what breastfeeding felt like for me, every single time, across four children: The moment my baby latched and the milk began to flow, a wave of dread would crash over my body.
It was immediate and physical. I would close my eyes and inhale deeply, bracing myself for what was coming: a strange cocktail of sadness, panic, and the most bone-deep exhaustion I’ve ever experienced. There was some euphoria in there, too, but it was not the primary aspect. The feeling would peak for a few minutes and then subside as the feeding continued. And then it would return when the baby switched to the other breast.
It didn’t just happen while nursing. It happened when I pumped, and even when I merely anticipated milk letdown. The sensation became so consistently tied to breastfeeding that eventually, breastfeeding and that feeling were indistinguishable in my mind. Breastfeeding became pure dread.
When I tried to describe my situation to other mothers, most nodded in recognition—but not in identification. “Oh yeah, that weird feeling,” they’d say. “Keep going. It passes.” And it did pass after a few minutes, every single time. But it never actually stopped happening.
I told myself this must be what breastfeeding feels like. That maybe other women were simply better at pushing through it. After all, it wasn’t physically painful, it was just emotionally uncomfortable.
I did push through for a few months with my daughter before switching to formula, and then did the same thing with my other three kids, priding myself on being able to give them my breast milk for some time. After all, “breast is best,” I was always told.
I wholeheartedly believe that the more “natural” option is indeed the best one on a biological level. But it quickly occurred to me that on an emotional level, breastfeeding was creating more damage than good. During each nursing session, I would get through the feelings of sadness, only to be left with dread at the end of each feed, just picturing myself having to do it all over again in a few hours. That anxiety made me jittery and not as calm as I wished I could be around the babies. Especially when I had my second, third, and fourth kids, I noticed that the nervousness associated with my breastfeeding practice would affect my relationship with the older ones: I was always on edge around them as well.
“For too long there’s been this societal narrative that breastfeeding is always a beautiful experience that instantly bonds you,” says Lauren Dewey, a 37-year-old mother of two from Rochester, New York, who also felt a similar discomfort during her breastfeeding journey.
“When it doesn’t always feel that way, it can be confusing and isolating.”
I continued trying to nurse each kid for a few months, giving myself a deadline of 16 weeks from birth to at least try to follow the advice of doctors championing the feeding method over formula. And it turns out that there was something deeper going on—something that none of the cheerful messages around breastfeeding warned me about.
Months after I stopped breastfeeding my last child, though, a random Google search led me to discover a term I had never heard of before: D-MER, short for Dysphoric Milk Ejection Reflex. It turns out that my experience with breastfeeding had an actual name—and was not unique to me. Distinct from postpartum depression and the baby blues, conditions that are pervasive and persistent, D-MER is episodic, flaring and disappearing within minutes, completely related to the act of breastfeeding.
“It’s often misattributed to postpartum depression,” says lactation consultant Allison Alexander. “But D-MER is very specifically characterized by how abrupt it is. It comes on suddenly with milk letdown and resolves quickly. Baby blues don’t behave that way. They’re not tied to a specific physical trigger.”
Board-certified psychiatrist Jasmine Sawhne explains that the condition is rooted in neurochemistry. “When a baby nurses, oxytocin rises, which triggers milk letdown,” she says. “Prolactin also rises to support milk production. But, in order for prolactin to increase, dopamine must drop.” Even without D-MER, the hormonal shift that triggers milk flow can create a hollow, almost disorienting sensation—but it feels physical more than emotional and fades quickly. Most other moms I talked to when I was in the breastfeeding trenches were probably experiencing a dopamine dip that was subtle and regulated. They recognized the doorway, in other words, but they weren’t falling through it the way I was. For those with D-MER, the dopamine drop appears to be abrupt and poorly regulated, dropping moms into the emotional instability that I was experiencing.
“Dopamine plays a major role in mood regulation,” Sawhne says. “So that sudden dip can produce a wave of dread, sadness, irritability—sometimes even intrusive thoughts—that resolve once the milk flow stabilizes. ”Many patients,” she adds, describe “a sinking pit-in-the-stomach feeling,” one that is fleeting, but still emotionally intense.
“It’s an oversensitive dopamine response that leads to varied feelings, ” says therapist and author Marissa Zwetow. “It can be homesickness, despair, rage.”
Because it is not formally classified in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, there isn’t a single official prevalence number from bodies like the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention or the World Health Organization. But research suggests it affects somewhere between roughly 6 percent and 15 percent of breastfeeding women, depending on how it is defined.
“I see about 80 patients a month,” Alexander says. “Maybe three to five of them report D-MER.”
“It affects about 10 percent of lactating individuals,” says Sawhne. “And it’s on a spectrum: Some people experience milder symptoms while others may have intense, sort of intrusive thoughts.”
It can be very hard for new moms to recognize what’s happening. Dewey, the 37-year-old mother of two, noticed as well. “With my first son, I had no idea what was happening,” she says. “I thought I was just exhausted and stressed. I didn’t know breastfeeding itself was triggering the response, and I didn’t even know D-MER was a thing.”
What’s more, women who have suffered from the condition while breastfeeding one kid may not necessarily have to deal with it again during subsequent postpartum periods. The reverse is true as well: You might be relatively okay after the birth of your first child but experience the condition the second time around. It all raises the question: Can D-MER be predicted or diagnosed before symptoms begin?
The short answer is no. According to experts, the condition is directly related to a body’s interaction with and reaction to dopamine levels, which is something that can’t be entirely monitored until the act of breastfeeding actually happens. That being said, medical professionals have noticed some patterns that may lead us to understand predispositions.
Specifically, according to Alexander, “D-MER does tend to be more prevalent in those who have ADHD, are autistic, or people that have dealt with previous diagnosis of depression, anxiety, and PTSD.” These are all conditions that involve dopamine dysregulation in different ways.
In other words: If your brain already struggles with regulating dopamine, the sharp drop required for milk production may hit harder. To be clear, that doesn’t mean every woman with ADHD will experience D-MER and it doesn’t mean D-MER is a psychiatric illness. It’s still considered a physiological reflex.
Although there is no official cure for D-MER, experts agree that there are ways to cope with the condition. Generally, medical professionals fall into two distinct camps. Some, like Zwetow, believe distraction is the most effective approach: ”drinking ice water, listening to music, anything the person would consider a good diversion,” she says.
Others, like Alexander, argue that the feelings can be so intensely unpleasant that mindfulness or distraction alone won’t address the root cause. Because D-MER is believed to be linked to a sudden drop in dopamine, they suggest a more physiological approach—adding calcium and magnesium to the diet, especially during the exhaustion and nutritional depletion that often accompany the early postpartum period. (While there are no controlled trials or peer-reviewed studies showing that calcium or magnesium directly alleviate D-MER, some experts suggest they may provide general nervous system support, since magnesium is involved in neuromuscular function and calcium plays a key role in neurotransmitter release.)
“You might also want to consider indulging in activities that boost dopamine,” suggests Alexander. “Games on your phone that you love, for example.”
For some, a combination of the two coping mechanisms works best. “What helped me most was first recognizing the feeling as it started,” recalls Dewey. “I would take deep breaths, shake out my hands to release tension, redirect my thoughts, or listen to a podcast to distract myself. I became aware when it was getting too intense and would place my son back in his crib or hand him to my husband so I could step away and catch my breath. Before bed, I would use magnesium spray and essential oil rollers to help calm my body.”
Not knowing that my feelings could be pegged to an actual condition with potential treatment, I never even considered taking supplements—or, honestly, even asking a doctor about it all. (I simply thought that breastfeeding was just uncomfortable.) I did, however, notice a very slight decrease in discomfort when breastfeeding my children “peacefully:” locking myself in a room and turning on the TV to watch something mostly mindless.
Although I was certainly satisfied with the breast milk I was able to provide, I do wish I had known about D-MER during the childbearing process. Simply having knowledge of the condition may not have cured it, but on a mental level, being aware that I wasn’t the only woman experiencing it could have eased my emotional burden. I never felt bad for switching to formula after a few months, and I know plenty of women who didn’t breastfeed for a variety of reasons. But the awareness that breastfeeding could be so acutely mentally burdensome might have quelled some of my anxiety and made me feel a little less alone in the cocoon-like haze of the first few months after birth.
And consider this my call for solidarity among nursing mothers: Just as I am here, there are mothers and professionals all around willing to talk about what’s making you uncomfortable after you have your baby. You’re not alone if you find breastfeeding challenging—even if it sometimes feels that way.
