newborn support

[MumNWLondon]

Just wanted to post as this makes me so annoyed. SIL and DB had a baby last week, little girl weighing 6lbs6oz. Went home on day 2, SIL said no care in post natal ward.

They called me to come round on day 4 as baby having trouble latching on. What I said did help (ie the managed to get her on, and they thought she was sucking for up to 15-20 mins) so it didn't seem critical anymore - and midwife coming the next day. The hospital only schedule 3 midwife visits on days 1, 5 and 10.

Anyway midwife sent them back to hospital as baby lost 15% of weight and she was put in incubator and tube feed. They are still there but baby will be ok.

Hospital said they are getting lots of babies being readmitted.... clearly because their postnatal support is rubbish.

That;s really shocking. How hard can it be to employ a couple of BF counsellors or lactation consultants - and what a false economy not to if they are constantly readmitting people (from a heartless financial point of view!). What a horrible experience for your SIL and DB.

Yes, shocking and upsetting.

Also several hospital midwifes have tried to get her on the breast and they have not managed.

Is it possible that BFing is just not possible, if baby has tiny mouth (baby was only 6lbs 6oz at birth and now under 6lb) and mum has big breasts???

They have resigned themselves to expressing and bottle feeding. They can't let this happen to their baby again.

She now has the saline drip and nasal tube out, but its been really awful for them.

They need help urgently from a lactiation consultant I would say. There is a website, www.lcgb.org/consultants_local.html where they should be able to find one local to them. Many LCs will come around to the house for a fee - it was about £40 when I used one. A LC saved me when I thought breastfeeding was totally impossible, so I am a big advocate.

The consultant will help with positioning, latch, will check for tongue tie (has the baby been checked for this by the way?), etc etc etc.

Hospital midwives are often not the best people to help with breastfeeding - their knowledge can be out of date and they are often rushed. The ones in my hospital made things much worse by forcing my daughter's face onto my breast and she hated it. They also gave inconsistent advice and didn't recognise a poor latch. I am sure some are great, but mine and friends' experience has not been all that good.

My baby had a small mouth and I have massive boobs, it isn't impossible at all, but I suppose it did make positioning trickier than it might have otherwise been.

I hope thigns get sorted for them - it can be really stressful trying to get feeding established, but it's totally possible in the vast, vast majority of cases.

Tut thats awful, my dd2 and i were re-admitted because she too lost so much weight, i have just completed a LLL peer support course and one of the things a friend and i raised was that there should be independent feeding support system set up for all new mums, so the midwifes can get on with delivering babies and not have to worry about breastfeeding too! i know its part of their job description, but they are so enormously short staffed and overworked most of the time, that there needs to be another organisation set up for feeding support urgently!!