My 7 week old having s GA on Wed - dreading starving her beforehand

[cyanarasamba]

Already posted in Children's Health - someone suggested I post here too.

She will be going into theatre for a short proceedure at 1:30pm and I've been told not to feed her after 9:30am.

Aside from my anxiety about what these investigations might find, I am breaking my heart about her wanting to feed and having to deny her. She is exclusively breast fed and seems to be going through a growth spurt at the moment - feels like I am feeding her almost constantly.

The registrar on the phone said the nurses on the ward would have some experience of dealing with this but not sure what he meant? Any ideas anyone of how to get through this? She doesn't have a dummy. Would they put her on a drip do you think?

My DS had his first operation at 10 days, another at 6 weeks and several more in the ensuing weeks.

He was bottle fed so it might be different; but it wasn't too much of a problem iirc. They can have boiled cooled water later than they can milk, so will she take some water from a bottle/cup or spoon? Maybe you could practice over the next couple of days. You may also be able to wet her lips with water on a sponge (or DS would suck the water from a sponge when he was nil by mouth for 2 days due to a problem). The hospital should have bottles of sterile boiled water for you to use if they deal with babies a lot.

I can remember another mother stressing beforehand about cuddling her child because she was bf and she thought the daughter would smell the milk; but it didn't seem to be a problem for her so may not be for you.

I would have thought a drip would be only a very last resort

Just to add - Water on a sponge - they have special little ones on a stick!

cyanara - Kellymom says 3-4 hours and has reference to show the anaesethitist (sp?) but in your case it sounds like they already know that. You could push for no bfing after 10.30am rather than 9.30 but I don't know if they would relent. They might give her fluids by IV before the op, I suppose, to stop dehydration

I'm sorry your DD is having an op but hopefully it will go well and you will be able to feed her in recovery.

Ds was 11wks for his 1st GA. He was ff so may be different. In any case I fed him as much as he would take before the cut off.

He didn't have a drip - they dont usually dehydrate that quick. If they need fluids when they are under they will be given some then.

He came round ok, was unsettled for a bit and then fed again.

Hope it goes well for you both.

Poor you. I have had to do this when DS was a similar age. He did complain and I felt very mean but it was only for a short time, and it was lovely to feed him afterwards and give him such comfort while he was recovering. I hope it all goes well for you.

By the way my son was in hospital for a long time and he did have a dummy for comfort, can't recall if he did at the time of the op. But once he could feed properly he lost interest in it completely. So maybe you could try one as a one off.

My DS was 3 weeks when he had a GA. We were one of the first on the list in the morning and we were already in hospital. I just fed through the night as much as I could before the time I had to stop breastfeeding so he was well tanked up before his procedure.
We did a lot of walking arond the ward and for distraction. It was not as bad as I imagined, so try not to worry too much.

I'm sure I could only not feed him for an hour or so after his op. We tried boiled water but he was having non of it so we went stright to BF.
He did have an IV line in so can not remember what fluids went in through it.

I did have to express in the gap between being able to feed again as became very engorged as was used to feeding every 2 hours or less. I just borrowed the hospital pump for this.

Good luck with eveything

I had heard that breastmilk was counted as clear fluid and can be given much closer to an op than "food" (formula is classed as food).

However, I could be wrong and it will need investigating, but may be worth looking into.