Friend couldn't leave hospital until her dd took several oz, so gave formula - she wanted to breastfeed.

[SayItLoud]

I was fairly certain I'd find a good thread to send as a link to my friend, but have looked through ten pages and can't find one, so please help me with your best advice!

My friend had her dd in hospital this week, and was apparently told that they didn't know the baby was getting enough milk if she breastfed, and she couldn't leave until they were sure she took x number of oz, so advised giving formula. My friend was keen to breastfeed, and now the baby is on regular formula.

Without getting into the ins and outs of what the hospital should have done (bad advice, I know, but I'm not sure exactly what was said or how it was phrased, how much pressure put on, etc), can the experts out there offer her any advice to help establish breastfeeding anyway, or is it too late? The baby was born on Sunday, so now 3-4 days old.

Thankyou!

definitely not too late. DS was very poorly when born and I didn't even see him till he was 16 hours old. I had to express all the colostrum and was able to start trying to feed him until he was 5 days old. After leaving hospital at 9 days I EBF until he started solids at 24 weeks and mixed fed from 8-10 months. I just fed him every time he cried. didn't even think about trying to FF until he was much older and then discovered he had MCPI so couldn't take normal formula anyway. I found my local bf support group and making friends with other bf mums an enormous help.

MW's will give formula to ensure baby is getting enough food if they don't take to breastfeeding straight away. It's so important they get something into them. We were in hospital 2 days because dd did not stay awake long enough to breastfeed and her blood sugar levels dropped. I protested at first about the formula but they explained the alternative was possibly the neonatal unit. 3 days in and dd was breastfeeding just fine, and has been ebf ever since (now won't take a bottle but that's another thread!).

doblet
You are right that babies do need to be fed and sometimes formula is needed. However, in this country, according to best practice the order of preference should be usually:

1. Breastmilk straight from the breast
2. Mother's expressed breastmilk
3. Donor breastmilk
4. Formula

Option 3 is unfortunately rarely available except for the sickest or most premature babies. If mum can't or doesn't want to express and no donor milk is available or it's not acceptable to the parents, then formula may be needed. But, it is wrong to say just baby's not breastfeeding directly, therefore formula is essential. This is not true in all cases. Well trained mdwives should be thinking about expressing as a real option, especially where blood sugar is low. UNICEF BabyFriendly resources cover this scenario explicitly and hospitals are expected to have a hypoglycaemia policy

OP -loads of good suggestions on this thread. I hope your friend is doing lots of snuggling skin-to-skin, maybe expressing, getting some support from someone trained in breastfeeding and hopefully getting towards where she wants to be, just like doblet did .