Baby in hospital getting enough breast milk?

[neepsntatties]

My baby girl who is 11 days old has been in hospital since Friday with bronchiolitus. They took her off her drip yesterday and I am allowed to feed her. Had been expressing before as they were not keen on me feeding.

Am now worried about her getting dehydrated. She is very sleepy still and is only feeding for about five mins at a time then goes back to sleep. My other options are to syringe feed expressed milk or let them give her another feeding tube.

I want to breastfeed her, feel it is important but some of the staff have been a bit negative. Does anyone have any advice? I am really sleep deprived and can't think straight.

Just bumping for you neeps. I hope someone comes along who knows more than me and congrats.

Thanks.

She also seems windy, they gave her infacol. She keeps triggering her heart alarm.

If I were you I might start another thread in chat headed 'help, baby in hospital - feeding issues' or some such.

i would just feed as often as possible. if she is tired and not feeding for long then just go with short but frequent feeds.

if you feel pressured into giving more, then I would express and syringe feed that.
are there any signs of her being dehydrated?

She's having wet nappies. I think her tummy is upset tonight. I am just so tired from the last few days my brain is muddled. Some of the staff before told me to stop feeding her for now but the staff changed and now it's fine.

Mine was in with jaundice. She had a tube, so I expressed my milk and the staff fed it to her through the tube, and topped it up with a little formula if necessary. They used to get me to breast feed her and then they slowly poured the expressed milk into her tube whilst she was feeding off me. It worked well. We were able to continue feeding, she had all of the milk that I produced and the staff were happy that she was getting the necessary amount of milk. It is only for a few days, and then the tube will come out and just carry on feeding.

You must be tired and worried, wish I could come over and make you a brew.

dd2 was in scbu for 5 weeks, out for a week, then back in again with chest infection. she was ng fed first off, but then slowly ebm introduced. she couldn't bf (she had no suck/ swallow or gag) but wanted to say that the hospital should provide expressing eqt and storage space for ebm if you need it. she had an ng tube for ebm again for a few days to top her up when she was too weak to feed from the chest stuff.

if her nappies are still wet then she is likely getting enough fluid, and they will be keeping a close eye on her anyway.

it's horrible when they are in hospital so tiny (i think i ws on your other thread - ds1 had rsv and double pneumonia at 10 weeks too)

hope she picks up soon x

Thanks, not a good night at all. Her nose is all blocked and it's upsetting her. She is Still only feeding for five mins at a time but nurses don't seem worried. This illness is just horrible.

are you expressing to keep up your supply? might be worth talking it through with someone if she is going to be off her feeds for a few more days - you want to make sure you have plenty for when she can breathe properly?

all of mine have been terrible feeders when they've had stuffy noses, poor little mite.

hope she has a better night tonight x

Oh how horrible for you both Neeps. Are they giving her saline nasal drops up her nose to help unblock it? They get tired quickly when they've got blocked noses as it's harder to co-ordinate the suck/swallow/breathe thing. The heart rate monitors aren't always very reliable so don't worry about that too much, if the nurses aren't worried about it you don't need to . Ask to speak to the infant feeding nurse in the hospital (they should have one, or at least someone who is up on breastfeeding support) and make sure that they document what they've told you so that all the staff are saying the same thing. The problem is some of them get obsessed with how much baby's are taking in ml's (which is hard to judge when they're bf) and it undermines your confidence in feeding. Is she feeding more frequently than normal? xx

I'm so sorry you're going through this DD3 has had bronch 9 times this past year (bloody awkward child!) so you have my every sympathy.

The major concerns with bfing (as far as the Drs are concerned) are that they can take a lot of milk on board which swells their stomach reducing room in their chest cavity for their lungs and making it difficult for the diaphragm to move freely.

Bfing can also use a lot of energy when they are struggling to breathe - DD3 used to hit high 80s/low 90s on O2 sats, the breath rate would go up to 60+ and reach 170+ on HR when bfing when she was really poorly.

She was syringe fed or NG tube fed when that was the case though the interesting thing was at ~3m/o she was 'restricted' to 23mls of milk an hour - the average milk intake for a 1m-6m old baby is 25oz a day (28mls in a oz) or 29mls an hour so I can only imagine they were basing their calcs on formula feeding charts (she was apparently on 1/3 rations).

She really wanted to be bf though she would suck her fingers in a bfing pattern whilst they syringed milk down her tube.

As a bit of comfort for you when she was on the mend and off the tubes her heart rate would drop down to healthy levels, her breath rate would come down and her O2 sats would shoot up whilst breastfeeding - she would gets melt into the feed.

Ask if they can do suctioning before she attempts to feed as she will be able to feed and breathe so much easier. If you can get this set up to happen before you think she might be hungry it would be best so she doesn't get too distressed i.e. probably about 30-45mins after last feed. They can use a fine gauge tube after a wide bore one if ness. to get the thick stuff and then the fine gauge to get the thin mucus and further down the nasal passages.

If you can keep expressing (do it in bed to get some rest) when you have the chance so you can get your supply up and running. Have the ward arranged for a hospital grade pump for you (if might need to be brought from Maternity)? It's also good to have a small supply in the ward fridge/freezer in case of baby needing a tube asap (I'm crap at expressing under pressure usually but did manage 200mls by hand in about 5 mins when DD3 needed to be syringe fed for the first time!).

Keep bfing if she's well enough and if she's not then letting her feed whilst syringing a little milk in to the corner of her mouth is ok too as an option before moving to the more heart lurking NG tubes.

All the best to your whole family and I hope your baby comes home soon. Many unMNetty (hugs).

Expressing to keep supply up and then giving tube or syringe top-ups does seem like a good idea if she's getting dehydrated. If the medicos aren't worried, just persevere with bfing IMO - she may not put on as much weight as normal but she can catch up when she's better.

They should have expressing set-ups with SCBU. My hospital had expressing rooms and kit to lend you with a tub for sterilising that they changed for us every day.

Thanks so much for all your brilliant replies. I asked to talk to a breast feeding specialist from maternity and someone came up who was very reassuring. She's feeding little and often which is fine and has lots of wet nappies.

Hoping we will not be here much longer but dr says there is no way of knowing.