Due Sept '08: We're halfway there part 2....

[LittleConnie]

Come on over!

Starlight - sorry to hear about your miscarriage and the sad milestone.

Sympathy to those struggling with food, I am finally, finally turning the corner and now only feel a teeny bit queasy in the evenings and am even beginning to enjoy food again.

Trying to make up for those months living on kettle chips and wine gums by eating lots of fruit and veg now!! Still can't drink tea, wine tastes foul and I don't really want fish though. But those three dislikes have run throughout my previous pregnancies. So post birth I will be having a cuppa, then demanding sea bass with a glass of muscadet!!!

eandz and any other first timers I would warn you it can actually be pretty painful when you milk comes in. I remember not being able to sleep as my boobs were rock hard and felt like on fire. I found putting very cold wet towels on them and also drinking peppermint tea helped a bit. It was maybe worse as my DD wouldnt breast feed so my nilk there but not getting used.

eandz don't know if you misread my post or didn't read the whole thing. It is vital to get your baby to feed as often as possible in the first few days and weeks. It means offering at at least 8 to 12 feeds per day from day 1. That works out to at least every 2 but no less frequently than every 3 hours, round the clock. If a baby feeds often during the day, then it is ok to let him sleep at night but for no more than 5 hours until you are sure that he is gaining weight well. (kinda goes against what starlight said a few posts down but I am quite sure of this)

My dd did not feed effectively in the first 2 days and no one in the hospital picked it up eventhough i was in the high dependence unit and had a midwife in the room round the clock. she became very jaundiced and we stayed in hospital for 8 very traumatic days. I would not wish this on anyone which is why I advised to have your baby feed.

It is best i think to:

1. go to a breastfeeding support group while still pg and see real women feeding real babies. You will then be able to know what a good feed looks like. Many midwives, doctors and health visitors are appallingly ignorant of this and this is why my problems developed the last time round.

1. Take the phone numbers of the 4 breastfeeding charities in your hospital bag and ring them if you are getting conflicting advice post delivery.

1. Get the name of the Infant Feeding Specialist at the hospital you are due to deliver in and call on her if you have any feeling that something isn't right.

1. as you are planning an epidural, i am sorry to say, there is evidence emerging in recent research that it can interfere with a newborn's feed in the first day or so. So it is important to arm yourself with knowledge now. I don't mean to scare you. I mean to pass on evidence based information so that you won't be as ignorant and trusting as me and end up in a very unhappy place, like I did.

kirsty: severe engorgement like you described is a symptom that milk is not being removed effectively or often enough. there are cases where women have an oversupply and this still happens despite frequent removal and effective feeds. like starlight said, expressing a little off before trying to latch your baby usually does the trick.

RE: BF....I have a few questions...would really like to try but after last time am a bit worried...

I have very large breasts - am a 36ff already - does this make bf harder? Also, my ds was born with IUGR and had prolonged jaundiced and just wouldnt/couldnt suck - are there any ways to still bf if this (god forbid!) happens again?

(Starlight and kiskidees - you seem to be the oracle when it comes to bf!!!! )

Starlight - I have a miscarriage anniversary in august (and had one last november) and I know what you mean....it does make it easier being pregnant again, but it is still sad. The idea of what might have been I suppose....

Anyone know any good baby name books? Dh being a real pain re: name for junior.

oh no, i agree with that part.

this is the sentence that I think can be misinterpreted:
"If the baby refuses to feed this often that is okay, but at least it has a choice if you offer iykwim!!!"

Because of pethidine, and epidurals (sometimes) and in my case also because I had a cocktail of betablockers in my blood stream which crossed over into dd's, I was offering feeds early on and she was refusing them. I was told it was ok by the midwives. It was clearly not. When she started to show interest on the second day, she was quickly falling asleep at the breast and still no bells were ringing. It wasn't till day 3 when she was going yellow that the midwives showed concerned, then begin to flap and panic but still I got no useful help, in retrospect.

My rant:
I think we avoided SCBU for her by the grace of God tbh. Because no one there knew, sorry, their asses from their elbows. Rant over.

FYI today after work, I am going to the hospital to speak to the Head of Midwifery WRT my experience. It is still a part of laying those ghosts to rest as we discussed one night. At this point, I just want to share my case study and make suggestions for best practice as like I said, i don't want anyone else to be in that unhappy place i found myself. [still feeling teary after all this time.]

Starlight...its me (again!)

Can I ask what you are doing for your heartburn? Mine is getting really bad and I am struggling to eat after 6pm as I feel so awful. On Gavison at the moment (about 2 litres a week!)

large breasts should not be a problem to feeding. A rolled up towel under your breast can help your nipple point outward rather than down if that is the case. Also some people find the bfing cushions indispenable. Feeding lying down takes some practice but I have heard large norked women saying what a dream and blessing it was WRT feeding.

I can put some links up later but gotta get back to the grind now.

I am feeling really crappy today. I think everything is getting on top of me . The last 6 months have been rotten, early miscarriage in Nov, painful wisdom teeth extraction shortly afterwards, had to take DS to hospital with severe vomiting bug on Xmas eve, bad morning sickness for the first couple of months of this year, broke up with DP for a few weeks and now I have had to change my work base, drive 50 miles a day and work an extra day a week as my old office is closing down, either that or be made redundant. I want to hide under the duvet . And to top it all off I was told I can't take a lunch break on Fridays as I don't work long enough hours (9:30 - 3pm). At 24 weeks pregnant I really can't put up with much more and I am shattered. Sorry to bang on but maybe if I type it out I will have a good cry and feel better. I'm not sure if I am being a wimp, but I really don't have any ethusiasm for anything these days.

Baby is moving lots which is nice and DS's walking is getting really good. I have just put his annoying Stokke high chair on e-bay as it drives me up the wall and we've hardly used it, he just tries to climb out and break his neck. We ended up buying one of the Chicco Polly plastic monstrosity high chairs instead, but we love it! My other friend couldn't stand her Tripp Trapp chair either, thought I'd better warn those of you thinking about getting one!

starlight LOL at you sucking the milk out of your boobs. That has made me smile.

I will post later WRT info regarding expressing colostrum to feed a jaundiced, small, early baby or if mother had diabetes or betablockers. (wish I knew this back then. sigh.)

Meglet...are you being a wimp??

Hell, no! You are amazing!

Really hope you feel better soon...

Thanks starlight and kiskidee - would appreciate that link x

kiskidee and starlight thank you so much for all the amazing bf advice. As a first timer it's so good to be armed with all this information as we head into the unknown. I'm not expecting it to be easy but at least I now have realistic expectations and know where to turn if things become difficult. And also nice to know that my enormous (34H!) norks might help me do a little snoozing while I feed!

carrieon sounds like a fantastic scan - how lovely. And am chuffed that we're still due on the same day

meglet are you sure you are not entitled to a break i thought they had to let you have a 15 min break if you worked over 4 hours?

meglet - what a nightmare situation - that's appalling. You should try to investigate what your rights are. I'm sure your employer is required to adjust your job given that you're pregnant if that is required.

Kiskidee - I also had an incredibly sleepy baby first time round - not interested in feeding at all. Possibly due to 3 day on-off labour, then failure to progress and epidural and syntocin for almost 12 hours till she was finally born! I was so lucky to get amazing breastfeeding support at my hospital, in fact they didn't want me to leave because I hadn't established feeding properly. But I was miserable being in hospital, so did a bunk and got home on day 3 and dd promptly woke up and fed solidly for about 14 hours (or so it felt like).

Sleepy newborns, uninterested in feeding are really common I think ... main thing is to keep persisting. And to know where to go for help. Such a shame that good breastfeeding support is so patchy.

sorry meglet i have checked and it says that you are entitled to a 20 min breakif you work 6 hours or over, but i'm sure at most places you get one for over 5 hours

they sound like they are being petty

have just been to see midwife and all is good she didn;t measure me but found the heartbeat straigt away which she said was odd so early on as they sometimes try to run away from the listener thingy

my new pushchair has come it's just what i wanted and is great ..... except it does not fold with the seat rearfacing only forward facing but i supose i can live with that cos appart from that it's perfect and for the odd occasion when i get a taxi or bus on my own i'll just have the baby forward facing