to be upset by this?

[mrsbean78]

I suspect that this may be my last thread on mumsnet, as I think I am going up against a regular.

I posted this thread today:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/breast_and_bottle_feeding/877382-Slow-to-gain-wt-baby-panicky-mi dwife?msgid=17836631

I cannot believe that someone would interpret my panic as a reason to suggest, in order, that my 12 day old first born might have a metabolic disorder or have something so serious wrong with them that it might affect their survival.

When I said I wanted to know what the concerns would be, I meant from MY health professionals. I appreciate this might not have been clear.

I appreciate my second post might have been misread but I am very upset and worried about my baby and I really think that the use of sceptical faces was really unwarranted.

As it is, my baby did not gain weight today.. although the midwife was not concerned and will just review it.

Now I have to worry at the back of my mind that my baby might have something that makes him 'just survive' instead of grow..

And people saying I just wanted a pat on the head.. that is so lacking in compassion! I am in floods of tears as I write this..sbsolute floods of tears.. but I guess the important thing here is that I was 'rude' or not considered in my response to someone else (which I actually tried to be, though I was angry..).

I am so, so, so upset and worried. I wish to God I had never posted..

mrsbean78 poor you. I know what it is like having a new born, struggling with the feeding, and worried about baby's weight gain.

You really caught the harsh end of mumsnet today.

Sometimes even people who intend to be helpful are so entrenched in their views and experiences that they leave sympathy and compassion on the side.

I would not have caught this thread, as I have hidden the feeding topics on this forum, as I always ended up in a piffle with certain posters if I posted about my great successes with topping up breast feeding with the odd bottle. Please dont let it get to you.

Good luck!

I know that the OP is genuine, I recognise her from another forum, and have tried to advise her there.

I had a nightmarish start to motherhood. When you are exhausted it is hard to make a decision, that means not doing what you had planned to (like exclusively breastfeed however difficult). I felt stressed and conflicted and bewildered that things were not at all as I had imagined. And there are all the hormones too.

The OP lashed out wrongly and regretted it. Hard times don't often bring out the best in us.

tbh,dont ask strangers to guess health advice.sorry you are upset but well you dont know anyone professional status and they might be posting advice gleaned from diagnosis murder for all you know

Hi, I just read your original post. Sorry but yabu to be upset by that, for the simple reason that you expilicitly said that you were tired of the pussyfooting around and wanted to know what the real concerns were. Tiktok told you what the concerns were, as a bf consultant (or whatever she is).

Of course, we have all been where you are, we understand that your hormones are all over the place. And congratulations!

Mrs Bean, can I say that I really sympathise with you. My DS was small and really slow to put weight on, despite my constantly feeding him. I also for the first few weeks would alternatively burst into tears/rage for no logical reason. I also felt that every health professional offered conflicting advice.

The best advice I think I was given, was at about 6 weeks it was suggested that I supplement breastfeeding with alternate bottle of formula. This helped me in so many ways, someone else was able to help me with the feeding whilst I rested, we were able to get out and about more (I wasn't one for bf'ing in public). My DS put weight on so quickly after that - and I did continue to alternate with the BF'ing until he was about 8 months.

Good luck to you and your baby.

Thanks to everyone for messages of support.

Our GP friend came over last night and took over, basically - she examined him, watched me feed, watched me express, palpated my boobs, watched to see what my milk ejection was like.. our relationship may never be the same again...! Anyway, she wants me to express but only 2-3 times a day to try and build up milk supply and she is prescribing me something to help with supply as she thinks it is low, maybe because of the early latch difficulties and also maybe because of weak and ineffective suckling. I am going to ask for a referral to the lactation consultant from comm m/ws today..

I asked her re: what the main concerns would be and she said that with his rate of loss and other presenting features failure to gain/minor losses are nearly always to do with breastfeeding not working as it should - either supply, suckling, latching or positioning. She said that the latch and position were fine but he did seem a bit 'chompy'. He tails off a bit in the feed.. she said this can be to do with reduced milk flow? She said that anything making him poorly would present in other ways apart from some very, very rare exceptions (e.g. PKU and MCAD) and certainly she would expect some dehydration and more significant loss if there was something more serious.. she said that she expected that if he hadn't gained next week they might do some bloods etc but not to worry, it is so unlikely given that he is well and has an appetite, good colour, tone etc..

I know she is worried I am showing signs of PND.

I have suffered a lot from anxiety in my pregnancy. I am not normally an anxious or depressed person. It started when I had a threatened m/c and I then became very obsessive about the swine flu. I tried to talk to my m/w about it but I don't think I presented it as being as bad as it really was - in any case that m/w was VERY hard to talk to, one of those brisk get-you-in-and-out-in-ten-mins types. It had calmed down by the third trimester, but then it was discovered that the hospital had mixed up an earlier blood test I had done for obstetric cholestasis so at 39 weeks, I was told I had signs of being positive for OC at 28 weeks that had not been followed up.. which spiralled me into thinking that I might have a stillbirth.. (my aunt had a stillbirth at 39+4 and I remember it very vividly). All of these concerns came and went and I just got on, and the labour/birth were fine.. until the final hour when I had to have a rotational forceps delivery for malpresentation.. and when he came out he didn't cry.. not for long, maybe 30 seconds to a minute and apparently he did 'make noises' though I couldn't hear them.. however I can still see his little blue/limp self being held up.. His Apgar was 6 which I know is moderate not severe.. and he didn't require much other than a bit of O2.. but in those first few days I was haunted by the memory of seeing him so limp and waiting for the cry. I didn't get to hold him for ages because I reacted badly to the epidural and was throwing up and shaking.. and then we had huge difficulties in hospital with latching on etc and an unfeeling m/w which I posted about elsewhere here..

So it's all tiny things, but they've built up. The irony is that the first few days home were bliss.. I loved every second.. we just babymooned, stayed in bed together and cuddled and fed.. and then the visitors started coming and then this weight gain stuff and I guess I just lost it. I hope I am not getting PND and this is just normal newborn blues because of all these bits and bobs..

Also, to everyone re: formula.. my GP friend advised considering this too.. but she said I might want to ask the m/ws could I NOT be weighed for a week to let things settle out (as long as he had lots of wet/dirty nappies and everything else stayed the same). She also told me to stop syringe feeding that there is virtually no evidence of nipple confusion and that it is just adding additional stress for no good reason..
Still haven't decided what to do about either of these things..

Oh MrsB I know what it is like to have a newborn like this. I really hope you get the help you need, it sounds like you have some great rl help with your gp friend.

Formula worked for us with DD she started to gain immediately, bit I respect we all have to do what we feel is right individually. I do feel for you I can relate to so much of what you say. Good luck with everything.

Sorry you are feeling so fragile and I can see that you are worried. I don't blame you.

but tiktok is an invaluable member of MN, always offering good advice. She offered you good advice and you took it the wrong way. You were unreasonable.

Step away (for now) but don't leave MN for good. It can be a lifesaver.

Ohh it's moved on! SO glad you re feeling a little better now

If you are expressing to build up your supply, do you have to throw the expressed milk away?

If you consider formula, would it work to give just one feed-maybe at night so baby and you might get a few hours sleep?

This could also help your supply.

good luck, hope he's put on loads by the time he's next weighed

MrsB - I have suffered from anxiety after the birth of both of my DC and like you have never had depression or anxiety at any other time in my life. It took me a while to accept that is what I had and also for HCP's to accept it as I think I presented well. On the outside I was coping and looked fabulous apparantly but on the inside I was screaming for someone to please notice that I was falling apart. Take care of yourself and if the anxiety continues make someone take notice. I read something on the internet that for a lot of women PND manifested itself in anxiety rather than depression and that helped me realise something was wrong.
Good luck and be kind to yourself.

I posted about my feeding problems on the other thread. Basically, dd was hypotonic and so wasn't able to suckle strongly enough, though I had tons of milk and the latch looked good. She would start of feeding efficiently and then get tired and tail off. She ended up in hospital having lost a lot of weight. She did seem very happy and contented, but was getting weaker, though I took a long time to realise (despite midwives trying to tell me).

I did end up doing the full pumping and syringe feeding regime to bring her weight up. In retrospect, it was very punishing on me and maybe I should have done formula instead. But I have no doubt that something did have to be done. In my case.

Of course it is impossible to know in your case, OP, how your baby is doing.

I was also very stressed and exhausted. It is ghastly, the amount of stress you go through. Hope things get better for you soon.

It's a good point about micro managing his weight. Daily isn't an accurate reflection.

Is your midwife the one you couldn't talk to? Maybe worth changing to H/V now?

If it would help, I can send you photos of my unbelievably scrawny newborn DD, and also photos of her a few weeks later, when she was thriving.

I topped up with formula/ebm for the first two weeks and then exclusively breastfed her to six months. She thrived and rose through the centiles for all that time.

Whatever you do, it will get easier.

Cory
Thanks for this.. I did wonder about this.. because I do have to jiggle him about very soon into a feed despite an initial strong suckle. How did you get it diagnosed? How long did it take with pumping etc to bring weight back up, and did you have to give up bfing?

Thanks ever so much for your advice.

I will talk to so about the anxiety too.. just feel a bit ashamed of it. I keep thinking I have a handle on it and then it flares up again and I am inconsolable.
I don't want to pass all that stress on to my baby..

ilovemydogandmrobama
I'll see about switching to HV.. the m/w is hilarious, comes in with bluetooth attached to her head and seems very City business like

and thanks for the advice MrsSnoops.. how did you get it recognised? I guess I just have to be honest? I find that very hard.. I want to be strong and have my makeup on and be good at this.

Thanks again

Oh MrsBean
Poor you, I really do see where you're coming from and I figure if you're half as nice and sensible as I suspect you are you're coping much better now you have that reasurance.

You sound exactly like I felt after DS was born, it turned me, a pretty normal capable professional into a gibbering wreck who was quite sure I was the first woman to EVER give birth and utterly focused on my DS.

I was terrified about EVERYTHING and what I found it hard to do was just absorb his loveliness because I was so scared.

I have a lovely Big Sister who talks to me in much the same that TickTock talked to you. It was her rational good sense that got me through some pretty rough patches in the first few weeks and then through the breakup of my marriage. It was quite hard sometimes to swallow the advice she was giving me because by nature I'm much more sensitve than she is.

The thing you need to have confidence in more than anything else, is that you DO know your baby better than anyone else and if you think there is something wrong/right you're most likely correct.

Be kind to yourself, having a new born is such a big adjustment. Eat your favourite foods, rest when you can and celebrate the fact that you have been blessed with this adorable bundle.

Oh and a last word of advice from my big sister, if you don't agree with an opinion, go and find another one that does suit.

Take care and don't be away too long.

xMad

"mrsbean78 Mon 14-Dec-09 09:09:21
Cory
Thanks for this.. I did wonder about this.. because I do have to jiggle him about very soon into a feed despite an initial strong suckle. How did you get it diagnosed? How long did it take with pumping etc to bring weight back up, and did you have to give up bfing?"

Dd sadly wasn't diagnosed with her underlying condition (Ehlers Danlos syndrome) until she was 7. And it was not until she was 11 that somebody told me that this would have caused her feeding problems. It was known at birth that she was hypotonic, but nobody seems to have put two and two together.

But the feeding problems themselves were recognised by the midwives fairly early on.

Our regime was then expressing and discarding foremilk, then breastfeeding, then expressing and syringe feeding hindmilk. I did not give up breastfeeding until she was 11 months. But I admit those first few months were very punishing. Her weight came up fairly soon, she was on track by 4 months.

Ds had similar problems (has same condition), but with him we started topping up with a bottle the moment he started going to sleep at the breast; I just wasn't prepared to go through the same thing again. He was put on formula at 6 months, but that was for other reasons (I need a change of medicine); we could have gone on a long time.

MrsBean and Tiktok - I read the original thread at the time and I thought at the time it was a classic case of reading at cross purposes.

MrsBean reacted badly to the word "concern" which featured in Tiktok's posts - she said use of the word "concern" by midwives irritated her. Tiktok replied saying "sorry to be irritating " and it went from there.

I'm sure that MrsBean didn't mean that she found Tiktok irritating. But I can easily see how it could have been read both ways.

I am a huge Tiktok fan - she helped me without even realising it. But it doesn't follow everyone should gang up on someone who feels they have unwittingly made an enemy of MN royalty, and must therefore leave although they don't want to - and in fact needs us at the moment.

I've had some sort of minor run-in with TikTok in the past, so I don't think it's not permissible (I'll argue with anyone, I will).

But I did read the other thread and think to myself that I wish someone had taken the time to run through possibilities with dd as thoughtfully as she did.

Because burying my head in the sand didn't make our problems go away. True, I was upset and worried. But I was a good deal more worried a few weeks later... And in my case, there was a genuine problem, and it hasn't gone away, 13 years later. Nothing to do with TikTok's status on Mumsnet. Just a realisation of how much easier our lives would be today, if somebody had put two and two together then.

mrsbean - I really feel for you. I was desperately desperately anxious when dd was tiny, she was also not feeding and I had a complete nightmare with bf.

she was diagnosed as tongue tied at 7 weeks and had it snipped but my supply never recovered despite pumping, feeding for hours at a time etc etc. I had loads of bf counsellors telling me not to worry but that's impossible when your baby's screaming from hunger. I felt like I'd completely failed as a mother when my mw told me I was starving my baby and needed to give her formula. I remember being very upset with some of the posters on here trying to be helpful and it was months til I realised how kind and helpful they were trying to be, I just wasn't in the right place to hear it.

in the end I mix fed her for 5 months and I am moving on from feeling like I failed, to thinking how well I did. She's 18 months now and happy and healthy, as am I, but I wish I'd got help with that anxiety early on, what I thought was normal for a new mum was, in retospect, definitely not.

please try to relax, it does get better, I promise.

Cory - I sympathise, if I had had any decent feeding support in the hospital, my DD would probably not have suffered severe hypoglycaemia and possible brain damage.

This is off the topic of this thread, but even once I was home and had got breastfeeding established, with help from my excellent health visitor and community midwife, DD always took ages to feed and needed to do so very frequently. I have hypermobility syndrome, as do my siblings. I wonder if my DD might have inherited it and if that may have contributed to her feeding problems and her IUGR. At her developmental checks they remarked that she was "very bendy" though I thought that all babies were! Nobody has ever suggested that DD might be hypotonic, or used the word hypermobile.

You say that "...how much easier our lives would be today, if somebody had put two and two together then." Do you mind me asking how so? Surely there is not much that can really be done to treat the condition, and knowing would just have helped you to manage it?

MrsBean - may I address the PND issue briefly please. I will say straight out that, though I am a nurse, I am not a mental health specialist, and am only speaking from my own experience and from what I learned at a conference that I attended on PND.

At this conference, the speaker (Dr Katherina Dalton, I think - but my memory is awful these days ) said that her theory is that low blood sugar can affect progesterone uptake from the blood, because the progesterone receptors switch to being glucose receptors, because the need for energy is the priority. They then don't switch back for some time.

Her advice was to eat some carbohydrate (preferably complex) every three hours, including no more than an hour after getting up and before bedtime. It doesn't have to be a lot - a rice cake or digestive biscuit, for example, but it keeps your blood sugar nice and even.

The reason I am telling you this is that it is a benign and non-medical way to tackle PND, and may help you if you feel you are heading that way - and even if it doesn't help with the PND, it will be good for you to keep your energy levels up as you cope with lots of feeding and broken nights etc. Also there are no nasty side effects.

Also, if you are worried, please do speak to your health visitor about PND, and ask what else they can do to help you. Your local NCT should have a post-natal support coordinator, and a Special Experiences Register, and can probably put you in touch with another local mum who has had PND, and will be able to give you some support.

Aromatherapy might be worth considering too, though I would consult a qualified aromatherapist.

I hope things get better for you soon, and if I can help at all, please yell - I spend waaay too much time on here, so should see a yell and will do what I can!