Failure to Thrive

[Leegray80]

Hi all
My little baby was born at 35 weeks with severe IUGR she was size of 28 week. Fast forward she's now 10 weeks, 6 weeks corrected and failing to gain weight. She's only 3kg/ 7lbs. She only drinks 70mls max sometimes only 30mls. Any more than 70ml she's shrieks after with pains and ends up bringing it all up. She has reflux as well and is on losec and gaviscon with isn't really helping much. I feel so sad for her. They are wanting to tube feed her if she doesn't make gains which I don't want as she had this before and bought up every feed since the valve is constantly open. Has anyone else experienced anything similar. I can't stand to see my little girl so sad with reflux and not growing as she should

Didn’t want to leave this unanswered.. my DD was born at 36 weeks, IUGR too weighing 3lb 9oz. At 10 weeks old she was about 8lbs but her feeding was horrendous, she wouldn’t take much either, was always screaming after feeds, had bad reflux etc.

Only thing that helped was using a faster teat so she’d take more (she did bring up a bit more, but she was then drinking 120-150ml instead of 60ml). What bottles are you using? Have you tried a different bottle? My DD got on well with Nuk bottles.

Thank you so much, funny yesterday I did just change the teat. We are using level 2 now and dr browns bottles. She seems to be coping , a bit more spilly after but almost getting 80mls into her but she seems very uncomfortable after, like a trapped gas crys . When did your little grow out of it

@Leegray80 That’s good! She’s 11 months now and she still has reflux but it’s not bad.. it got better around 7/8 months!

Try keep her upright for 30 minutes after feed and wind her well.

My little girl was born at 39 weeks with IUGR due to the medication I take. She was on the 0.4th percentile.

I had the same experience with her digestive system. She'd be screaming with colic and reflux, and was very difficult to get her to sleep unless on one of us. Winding her took so long each time compared to friend's babies. It was a nightmare! Infacol did nothing. I found gripe water helpful, although not a cure.

I was breastfeeding and she lost just under 12% of her birth weight at the beginning and took ages to regain it. I ended up forced to combi feed her for a while until she could no longer tolerate it and started projectile vomiting the formula. At that point, I went back to EBF until weaning.

By 1 year old she was on the 50th percentile. She got over the digestive issues by about 4 to 6 months. She's now nearly 3 and a good weight and tall for her age, so long-term she has thrived. I couldn't have imagined this when she was a newborn! Hang in there.

Maybe look into whether she could have any allergies. Have you tried raising the head end of her cot or moses basket a little by placing something under the mattres? This can help the reflux a bit.

My little girl was born at 42 weeks with IUGR that was missed. Hospital were expecting a small 37 weeker. She was symetrically under the 0.4th for everything and went into hyperthermic shock at birth. Thankfully she did not have colic but she totally failed to thrive no matter what and lost 40% of her birthweight. It nearly killed her.

Her mouth was far too small for even premature baby teats so her hospital dietician provided her with syringes used for meds which she could suck milk from. She had to be fed every two hours round the clock for months which was a bit of a killer to do. Once she was a little bigger and over 4lb she moved onto 'cup feeding' from an egg cup and then back onto fortified EBF via a prem teat. There may be other options to tube feeding a tiny baby if you ask.

IF the hospital is suggesting tube feeding it would be worth asking to see a peadiatric dietician who could advise on calory rich supplements that can be added into toleranted milk. A small baby has an equally small stomach - more made up milk poured into such will come back up once the stomach is full. My daughter could only take 20ml milk at any time. She needed far more colories than pepti' with EBM could give so the dietician added in suplements like maxijul to boost the calories without increasing the ml's of milk. It s-l-o-w-l-y helped her over that bumpy first year.

DD was just about 12lbs for her first B'day. She has stayed petite and did not have a real growth spurt till she was past 12. She remians petite. The plus side was she was my only child who wore out prem baby clothes. The downside was no-one made small enough shoes for when she was walking.