Urgent helped need re breastfed baby in SCBU

[PuzzleRocks]

Apologies for not searching the archives first. And for any mistakes I may make. I am rushing this.

My SIL had a baby three days ago by emergency cs. He was five weeks prem. She has initiated breastfeeding although he has also been given some formula by staff.

My brother has just called me and tells me she is dreadfully upset. The ward staff have told her that she must go home. They cannot acommodate her any longer. She has not expressed sufficient milk to leave. And even if she had she does not want to be separated from her DS.

I am possibly clutching at straws but does anybody know what her rights are. Can they force a breastfeeding mother to be separated from her child?

Any advice will be gratefully received. I want to help her but don't quite know how. And am too far away to be there physically for support.

Thanks.

I remember being on automatic pilot while DD1 was in SCBU.

It was only a few weeks after dd1 came home that it hit me. I couldn't watch a normal delivery without sobbing about my own.

Be prepared that you SIL may need emotional support in a few months when everyone else thinks she should be fine.

And good luck.

They can make you leave. Ds was 7 weeks early and spent 25 days in hospital. I used to commute and spend from 6.15 am to 11pm there every day. Sometimes I got called in the night and had to drive back when I'd just got home (30 min drive if no traffic, up to 1 hour in the day).

I expressed whilst I was in hospital and had to hire a breastpump from the NCT for home use.

A few days before ds came home I went back and roomed in one of the parent rooms.

It was a horrible time especially if you are surrounded by people who have had normal healthy babies.

Gosh it must be very hard for her if her having to leave co-incides with her DS's NG tube coming out - that's very bad timing .

Like most other posters, I came home while DD1 was in SCBU, and I think that's fairly normal. Horrific at the time, but there's no other way really unless you are having significant health problems yourself and they have to keep you in. Luckily DD1 was being tube fed while I was at home, and only started to establish bf once I was back in and "rooming in" with her for 48 hrs on the unit.

They should however provide a hospital grade breastpump for overnight, open access to SCBU for as long as she wants to be there, and agree to cup feed her DS if she feels that having bottles overnight will confuse him. Premmie babies are often on 4 hourly schedules, so it may only be 1 feed per day she'll miss. Our SCBU had a noticeboard by each cot for notes, so you could write things like "I'll be back at 8am and would like to bf then, so please don't feed him just prior to that".

DD1 was 8 weeks early and DD2 was 5 weeks early and during both their stays in NICU I practically moved in even though I was discharged from the hospital on day 2 with DD1 and on the same day DD2 was born!

On both occasions, NICU lent me a huge box of an expressing machine and it really did feel as though I was either expressing (at home and at the hospital) or had just finished or had to express soon! I was also on Domperidone as my milk did not come in (both times) as the births were so quick.

Another thing I did - although DP actually DID it - was to call the hospital first thing in the morning to check how the night had gone since I had come home. This was also a way to remind the staff that I would be I for the first 'cares' of the day. In the first few days we had had a problem with missing 'cares' as the staff would do everything at the same time to avoid disturbing her repeatedly. So if they had to do a test, MRI, turn her in her nest etc etc etc, they would do all the cares - and I would arrive to find I had missed out by maybe half an hour.

So do try to encourage your brother to be proactive, it can also be a way for him to be more involved with the NICU staff if SIL is the one there all day.

DP went back to work 4 days after the arrival of DD1 and then took his paternity leave when she came home. I had already come home before he went back to work and he would come to the hospital each evening when he got back.

Coming home without your baby is awful - and bringing the baby home, eventually,is scary too! I remember calling DP in the middle of his lecture (he was at the front of the room!) to ask if we WANTED to being her home yet!!!

Hope the baby and parents are all doing well.

I really appreciate all the great advice.
She returned home late last night with equipment for expressing and set her alarm. They are back at the hospital now. I guess that's the best solution, leave late and return early. Tough going though. You all have my utmost admiration for coping.

Thank you.

Like lots of other posters have said it's 'normal' to be discharged before your baby. There are not enough 'rooming in' rooms for all the mums. My dc1 was in scbu for 10 days and i was discharged after 3 days. We bought an electric breastpump on the way home (should have hired a better one) and went in 3 times a day.But I breastfed dc1 til 8 months or so and the scubu staff were fantastic. DC1 was cup fed as I said no bottles, had formula a couple of times when the expressed milk ran low and I sat amongst the other mums bf when I was visiting the scubu. It was crap but did not effect my long term intention to bf.

Hi

my story is pretty much the same as everyone elses. I was discharged on day 4, DS on day 53. I went in every day after I was discharged, and had to telephone first thing in the morning to find out how the night had been and what time the cares were.

When I was discharged I was given no information about pumps etc, DH had to find it all ou himself and when i knew I was being discharged he and my father went tearing round town to get one for that night. That's one thing I and some others have spoken to our local hospital about.

Its sad but I always actually thought it was better to be discharged as my medical needs were non existent, and others needed more. Until about 9 months ago the situation here was different but they closed the ward for prem mums to make more space for prem babies and I fully support that decision having seen many many babies transferred from one hospital to another due to lack of space (We have a grade 1 unit so local parents are often moved away from the local hospital so really really prem babies have a chance at life, and however hard that is that in my opinion is a better use of resources than allowing the mums to stay with their babies).

Glad your SIL and her DC seem to be doing well. She will cope, we all do one way or another in the end but it is tough. Do what you can to support her, offer transport food, or just a shoulder to cry on.

I will also reiterate what a lot of others have said it is possible to go on a fully BF a prem baby. It's bloody hard work, espcially if they have other issues (mine has reflux so in the scheme of things not too bad), and I am sure if I wasn't so bloody minded I wouldn't have managed to continue. Personally after about 10 days I stopped getting up in the middle of the night (on the advice of a registrar who had also had a prem baby) and found if I pumped literally as I went to bed at 11 ish and when I woke at 6 ish it was fine. I know I was quite lucky with this though but I decided I needed the sleep. As DS is waking me 3-4 times a night now I am glad I did.

Finally there are ocasions where prems need formula, whether you want to BF or not. In fact it is very common because a lot of the formulas are very calorific (infatrini being the main one) and while very early babies need breast milk because of their digestive systems, the dieticians often need to supplement to ensure some catch up growth. If they do need this it need not get in the way of BF. I have a friend whose baby is now 8 months who has been mixed fed throughout. She gives 1 bottle of infatrini to help his growth. It hasn't affected her long term supply.

Thank you. It's really encouraging.

I had a full term DD who ended up being transferred at 24hrs old to another hospital for major surgery (totally unexpectedly as we had no idea there was anything wrong with her). She ended up having more surgery at 6 weeks and was in SBCU for nearly two months in total.

as I had a natural birth and was considered well enough to be discharged, I left hospital as the baby ambulance was arriving to take my DD away to the next hospital. It was one of the most horrendous experiences ever and I still struggle with friends bringing home their newborns within a few hours/days of birth.

anyway, that aside as we lived about 30 mins from the SCBU my husband and I found that rather than staying in hospital all day we would aim to get there for her 10am feed (I was desperate to physically BF as much as I could) and then stay til after her 1pm feed. We would then go home at about 2pm for the afternoon before returning again for her 7pm feed. We stayed til after 10pm for her last feed before heading back home.

I was told not to get up during the night to express but set the alarm for 6am and start the day then. If I couldn't physically feed my DD in the hospital I would go to the expressing room for 'Daisy time' as us mums used to call it.I would also express at home in the pm and then again when I got home at night

The hospital lent us an expressing pump but after a month I ended up buying my own which was actually a bit more effective. They gave us all the bottles and labels and every time we went into the SCBU I always carried in bottles to put in the freezer.

I ended up BF for 10 months and have to say that the strict feeding regime imposed by the hospital meant that when DD finally came home I already had some sort of routine established. You've got to draw some positives out of a situation like this!

what helped us get through the whole experience was having a fantastc MIL who did all our laundry and regularly left pots of stews and casseroles in the kitchen for us to just heat up. I found that I didn't want to talk to people much - which is unusual for me! - but knowing that there would be people at the end of a phone was very reassuring.

Your SIL will get through this and she will become stronger as a result. Fingers crossed her DC is a fighter and comes home soon

Puzzlerocks - kind of similar story, dd arrived 5 weeks early, was with me on ward for 4 days then admitted to SCBU for 6 days.
In that time the postnatal ward nurses kept on mentioning "you are fine and can go home" but didn't actually discharge me. I was quite assertive with them though as we live a way away from the hospital

The staff in SCBU were fab and I mentioned this to the registrar who was shocked and basically said they will help a mother trying to bf to stay in the ward (and be 2 mins from scbu rather than 40 minutes and 15 miles in my case!). I think they had a word with the postnatal ward as discharging wasn't mentioned after that.. we were finally discharged together 2 weeks after she was born.

Maybe your SIL/ brother should speak to the scbu staff who should support the bf and find a way for her to be as close as poss

minty, dd2 was born full term and spent 5 weeks in scbu. i go into full blown nervous pacing if any friends are in labour, and she's almost 7. i literally can't relax until i know everything is ok. i even feel nervy if someone starts an mn labour thread and doesn't update.

Sorry for bumping this with urgent in the title. I just wanted to thank galonthefarm, skintbint and mintyneb for also posting.

My brother and SIL are coping really well. My SIL spends about 12 hours a day at the hospital and my nephew is thriving. And incredibly gorgeous. He may be home sooner than anticipated. Fingers crossed.

And thanks again to everyone who posted.

oh that does sound good news. All the best