recurrent oral thrush in a 4week old

[elfsmummy]

Have just had a friend on the phone in despair with her GP and I'm hoping I can get some better advise for her from here.

Her DS is 4 weeks and she's had a few problems with feeding him but has been struggling through.At 2 weeks he got oral thrush and as a consequence this spread to her nipples but she struggled through agony to keep on feeding him. He was treated with nystatin drop and she with canestan cream.

Both infections cleared but his then returned so she got a repeat script from out of hours GP for him.

She phoned the GP today as his isn't clearing and the advise was to stop breast feeding and exclusively express all feeds in order to stop the continued cross-infections.

In reality this isn't going to be possible (she also has a 23 month old plus all sterilising etc etc etc) and she's fairly certain that supply will drop off and breast feeding will soon be over which is annoying when she's tried so hard to date.

Anyone else know anything about breastfeeding and thrush - anyone been prescribed anything stronger than nystatin in a 1 month old? It just seems a shame that her BF may be terminated by what may well be a very uninformed GP???

Thanks

[chipmonkey]

Typical stupid advice! ( From GP, btw, smallwhitecat is right!) The other thing is, is she sure the baby has thrush? I treated ds2 for weeks for what turned out to be milk on his tongue!

[elfsmummy]

Thanks guys.

I know the amount GPs know about BFing - DH is one! And he knows nothing!

I'll pass on your advise.