Baby going grey between feeds?

[TruthSweet]

DD3 has been going grey and all eye-y (if that makes sense ) between feeds since she was quite small. She would get a greyish face and her eyes became prominent and if you fed her she would 'pink' up and look normal again, even if she was showing no signs of hunger prior to the feed.

I never spaced feeds out or tried to stretch the feeds, and in fact tried to ensure she feed hourly during the day (she went from 91st - 2nd percentile due to bronchiolitis [now on 7th or 8th episode, I've lost count ]).

She is always warmly dressed but not ridiculously so (e.g. vest/top/trousers/cardi/socks during day time and vest/sleepsuit at night) so I don't think it's cold.

She's under a senior Paed. (who's v v pro-bfing) for her lung problems but paed didn't think anything of it.

She's now 14m and still doing this occasionally (though I no longer feed her 16 times a day, I should hasten to add!) and a feed sorts her out but a cuddle would have no effect on her colour neither does solids. She has even gone like that in her sling (ring not a bag type) when indoors.

Has anyone else had a baby like this? What could cause this and is it just a co-incidence that bfing her seems to change her colour?

[whomovedmychocolate]

Gosh I have no idea but that doesn't sound good and sounds really scary for you :(

Have you tried asking for a second opinion or even just popping to the GP - a fresh pair of eyes and all that.

[nickytwotimes]

has she had her blood sugar levels checked?
and oxygen saturation?

[TruthSweet]

Never had her blood sugar levels checked and her O2 stats can be quite low (95%ish on air)as she has a near permenant wheeze some days (you can hear her over the phone if I'm holding her and talking to someone).

She's on becotide and ventolin - may have montelukast intro'd soon (like DD1).

[lukewarmcupofmulledwine]

Blimey, sounds quite scary for you. Is it the act of sucking do you think (e.g. would a dummy or sucking her thumb help?), or is it something in the breastmilk?

[TruthSweet]

She sucks her fingers all the time though and can be grey even when sucking fingers. I wish I knew what it was though as it would make my life easier (I have a deep dark fear that it's cardiac in origin).

It's really not so bad now may be a couple of times a day or if she's having a good week a couple of times a week.

[lukewarmcupofmulledwine]

So must be something actually in the breastmilk presumably? What's in breastmilk that's not in solids ?? Reassuring that your paed doesn't think anything of it, and that she's doing it less as she grows older, but I suppose worth asking again as it does sound quite odd. It could just be a rubbish circulation thing - DD2 used to go all kinds of wierd colours when she was little - and the feed gives her more fuel to stoke up the circulation again. But then I don't understand why solids wouldn't? (except they would take longer to be absorbed I suppose).

Sorry, rambling - I clearly have no idea.