Help! Help! Help!

[misspollysdolly]

Gorgeous DD is four DAYS old. We have been readmitted tohospital because she has lost 13% of her birthweight (she was c-section born and fat with fluid if that makes difference to anything). She is my third DC and I am passionately committed to exclusively breastfeeding. My milk us only just coming in today. DD is feeding well. Latch is fine. Very content and sleeping between feeds. Poo and wee are both appearing at intervals. However here we are in hospital. She isnow subject to a delightful 'feeding programme' and I have just declined topping her up with formula against advice and am now feeling thoroughly confused about what to do for the best for my baby. She is now to be fed three-hourly (not 'on demand') I can only keep her on the breast for 30 mins each time 'so that she doesn't use up too much energy feeding' (apparently the amount used fretting and yelling for Mummy isn't the same thing at all) and I need to express using a pump so that she can be topped up with my milk on too of her reduced feed from me. Allof this goes against the grain and yet I'm adamant not to add formula in at all. I think that will muckabout with her system ament supply. Can someone help me make sense of all this and tell me what to do. DD is yelling. DH is holding her. I want to feed her. Help!

I am no expert but if she wants food or even comfort just bloody well feed her! How on earth is she suppose to put on weight?!

no advice i'm afraid but just wanted to say i can completely empathise. My instinct would be to feed too. Best wishes.

Perhaps you could ask the mws to explain and back up the evidence for this 'feeding programme'?

Frequent and unrestricted breastfeeding is advocated nowadays so I would be interested to hear their reasons for making you leave your baby to cry and wait for food.

Personally I would be sticking a boob in her mouth at every opportunity.

Wasn't there some recent research published whereby it was shown that babies born to women who had had a drip were born hyperhydrated, and so wee-ed a LOT to get rid of excess fluid in the subsequent days, and so showed a large weight drop that was just fluid... would arguing that with them cut any ice?

That seems completely counter intuitive, are there any lactation consultants at the hospital that you could speak to? Don't really know what to advisebut didn't want to read and run. Would definitely stick to your guns about no formula, it isn't necessary. I'd just feed her, she's going to exhaust herself crying for you, and you're going to end up a nervous wreck

OP. Well done you for retaining clear thinking in the face of rubbish advice. My DD had lost 15% by 3 days. I then had the pumping advice, the nonsense about stopping her after a while "because feeding for 45 minutes is for comfort not for milk". DD screamed more and weighed less. On day 5 I saw a local authority lactation expert based at a SureStart NOT the hospital who said all this was rot and just to feed, feed, feed, on demand but at least 10-12 times in 24 hours, no pumps, no formula, no limits to each feed. This encouraged my milk to come in properly and DD's weight went up & up.

Honestly, I would go home. Do it your way. I'm no expert but if her latch is good and you feed on demand she will start to gain weight in a couple more days.

Eat well & drink well yourself and rest when she's resting (hard with two older kids I know but do try) and your milk supply will flourish.

Some of the NHS are totally shit at breastfeeding advice and it really cheeses me off. My lactation consultant was fuming at the crap I'd been told in the hospital and by home visiting MW.

Stick with your instincts. She will be just fine.

Article on the research here www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/08/110814223805.htm

PS stick on here and real feeding experts will appear, I promise

A friend recently had a similar experience. Stick with the bf, ignore the advice. My friend wavered and followed their advice and it buggered up her milk. Her DH had a show down with the hospital, but after getting advice from a wise bf adviser, her milk supply sorted itself out after a few days. Stick with it. Good luck

Hi, firstly sorry to hear you had to go back into hospital.

My son was very ill after birth, had surgery, so not similar circs but the feeding regime was as you describe.

I know they are being very over-medical but I think that comes from a very cautious principle. All the bf advice goes out the window in hospital because they are working on the 'what if' principle.

My only advice for getting through the hell of not being able to care for your baby the way you would want (and it is sooo hard, I remember clearly just wanting to hold my son and being told I couldn't) is to do everything you can do and focus on that. So pump if you feel engorged so as not to lose supply, make sure you have loads of breast milk stored for bottle top ups. Sing to your baby, read to your baby, cuddle your baby (if allowed?)

What will they want to see from your DD in order to let her home? Presumably just weight gain as all else is ok? Ask to speak to a consultant or at least a registrar about this as you want to get it from the horse's mouth not the midwives.

The main reassurance I want to give you is if you keep pumping and feeding as much as you can then you will hopefully be able to get back on track with your BF wishes once out - I was unable to feed my son at all for two weeks but due to pumping religiously combined with good luck I was able to resume (start really) BF-ing as normal once we 'escaped'.

Best of luck and hope all is well x

misspolly, sorry all this is happening to you :(

You cannot 'ignore' what the HCPs are telling you - I wish ppl on mumsnet would not tell mothers this. How can we tell someone what to do and what not to do, when we are not there , we have not seen her and her baby, and we are not medically responsible for them either?

having said that, there's enough in your post for you to be justified in asking the infant feeding specialist or the equivalent (most maternity units have one) to assess the whole situation.

I don't understand why you are not being encouraged to be skin to skin with your baby so you can respond to every feeding cue...but it can sometimes be sensible not to feed on demand, usually if the baby is not demanding much :)

Not clear if this is the case with you.

Every day is different with a young baby - so tomorrow the 'programme' may change anyway.

Best thing is to speak to someone properly qualified in real life who has all your notes and who understands how to fix bf when it has got off to a slow start.

Don't just struggle against what you are being told - get another opinion :)

Thank you all for your replies. I really appreciate them as I was in a pretty desperate place a few hours ago. At the point I messaged I'd been told to limit her feed times to 30 mins, express and all the rest. Having had a bit of a meltdown-cum-showdown, we have now agreed that I will bf on demand as per DD's needs, tho not let her go more than three hours between feeds (I probably wouldn't anyway tbh), I will feed her until she has had sufficient, and then express the remainder from the last side she had, which she'll get via a cup. We'll revisit suggestions of formula top-ups if need be tomorrow. I feel calmer. I don't have to hide if I choose to feed her 35 mins after I started, she will not cry herself into hysteria in the name of conserving energy and eventually someone stopped talking and listened.

Thank you Tik-tok (and others) for some clarity. The two only concerns 'medically' are her weight-loss (though I would still argue strongly the case for c-section plus lots if fluid during birth after which she was only weighed immediately after birth and at three days old - not after 24hours - v interesting research though, thanks) and a slightly raised sodium level (suggesting dehydration). All other physical signs etc are fine/normal. My milk is slowly but surely coming in and I'm just hoping things change by tomorrow. I really want to go home. Did not see my other DCs between school and bedtime, which feels horrid .

Tik-tok what do I do if tomorrow the changes are less than hoped for and they want to force her to have a small formula top-up ('prescribing it' a la medicine), should I still stick to my guns and refuse...?

Thank you so much for your thoughts etc. They have helped calm me down. Please send happy thoughts or prayers (depending on your persuasion!) for masses of milk and miraculous weight gain overnight. Thank you. MPD

Glad you've found a way forward that you are happy with MPD.

Don't forget- lots of skin to skin and switch nursing to really get things going.

Will have a prolactin prayer for you in a minute as just off to bed.

I'd be amazed if a formula top up was deemed to be medically necessary, MPD - your milk is coming in, you are feeding ad lib and the details in your further post indicate she is not in any sort of danger.

If it was deemed medically necessary you could suggest supplementing instead with i) your own milk or ii) donor milk

I had very similar problems on the post natal ward recently. I'd had 6 litres of fluid in the last few hours of my labour (forceps in theatre, but they were prepped for emergency section). I'm convinced his birth weight was inflated by the fluid as he has always looked like he is thriving -hydrated with lots of wet and dirty nappies, no green poo, but we had to leave hospital against advice because his "weight loss" led to all the things you are describing and it was intolerable. The stress alone threatened my plans to BF.

We went home where the community midwives were much more rational, feeding is going well and he's just about at his "birth weight" again at 5 weeks, although he has surpassed his weight on Day 3 which i tend to feel was a much more realistic birth weight.

How have you got on today misspollysdolly?

So pleased to hear you've had a sensible chat with someone and they're listening to you. Hope all continues to go well - and that you can go home soon!

We came home last night, adding small top-ups of formula (Aptimil) to DDs feeds in addition to my expressed milk. It's not ideal, but my milk has still not really come in properly and we were all so stressed in hospital. DD hadn't gained anymore weight though her blood results showed she was no longer dehydrated at all. In the end although I hate formula, I've had to weigh up the difference between staying in hospital expressing milk and obsessing about milk coming in, not really eating, feeling stressed to the hilt, uncomfortable and a long way from home, and coming home to my other children, DH and my mum with formula top-ups. I've chosen the latter and am viewing th

(BUM! pressed button too early!)

I am trying to view the top ups less as poison and more as medicine and hoping it will be both short-lived and effective. I am still very concerned that I don't have masses of milk - third baby in and this has never been an issue before. Can anyone help me to understand why this has happened and also to know whether it can be rectified. I always thought when people say 'I didnt have enough milk' that they probably hadn't tried hard enough - I feel ashamed of this now as I have tried everything and still have no let-down, no quantity of milk and DD isn't gulping and slurping huge milky feeds. Is there any hope? Can full and proper breastfeeding be achieved now or should I start grieving...?! while I'm trying hard to be positive and am so relieved to be home (I slept more last night than in the whole previous 48hours) there is a deep well of pain and anxiety still.

Can my/our breastfeeding adventure be salvaged?? I do hope so. My gorgeous baby girl deserves it. MPD

This exact same thing happened to me. I followed the Dr's advice to the letter and offered formula top ups. I was devasted about not being able to EBF (and had every BF counsellor/midwife in West London through the door) but calmed down when I considered that it was more important that DS was not hungry than for me to rigidly stick to an idea I had had before he was born.

My milk never really came in but keep trying as mixed feeding is better than nothing and try to remeber that formula is not poison. Its not the best option but its better than than the wee thing being hungry.

MPD, glad you're back home.

Your baby is only a week old - it is still early days. Formula is being used as a temporary stop-gap and this should not mean in any way that longer term, breastfeeding is affected. You can discuss with the midwives when you can drop the formula and revert to full bf.

Her weight is not an issue now - I gather from what you say she has stopped losing weight but has yet to gain and this is perfectly within normal. Did you share the idea that babies with a lot of fluid 'on board' have birthweights that are not really the 'right' ones but are artificially heightened?

It may be your dd had a slow start. You said on Monday she was feeding fine - maybe she was not feeding quite as fine as it appeared. Not possible to know, really.

It's hard to tell if what you have experienced is a lot of intervention and messin' about to no great end.....you have been readmitted, you have been expressing and you are topping up and giving top ups of ebm and formula, and your baby is only a week old. The feeding you are doing now is the hardest and most awkward way to feed. Maybe just keeping you at home with support to respond instantly to any feeding cue and returning to weigh her for a couple of days would have been just fine, who knows? You can still do the snuggling together and instant response thing now - and it will be a lovely thing for you and her to do together to help you overcome some of that horrible knot of anxiety you feel. Get that oxytocin and those endorphins coursing around :)

MISSPOLLY-if you want to stimulate/encourage milk but are willing to use a little formula/exporessed milk then contact the nct or la leche league and get hold of a supplementer-i had to use. One for DD3 and it was a godsend. Basically, a small bottle of milk that you hang round your neck, 2 tubes attached which you tape to your nipple whilst feeding..as baby sucks she then gets the milk from the bottle AND your breastmilk AND she is stimulating your supply. It worked very well for me and my daughter and i trust it will work for you too.

Btw it is a temporary solution until your baby regulates her own needs from you so not forever and not neccessarily at every feed either (you can go out and not use it for examole)

That sounds interesting. At the moment DH is just using a tiny cup after she's fed from me - I don't want any part in this so that what she has from me is just boobs. I'm almost at capacity for taking on any more information and don't want to get to overwhelmed, but have been wondering whether to contact a LLL breastfeeding counsellor and seeking their advice both now and when the weight is back up and we are free to do our own thing. I may ask about a supplementer - in the meantime, is there a link to a picture online that you could send me. Stress-addled brain cannot imagine it! Thank you. MPD

Supplemental nursing system

www.medelabreastfeedingus.com/products/breastfeeding-devices/51/supplemental-nursing-system-sns

I expect you could hire one here

www.medela.com/UK/en/breastfeeding/products/location-finder.html

Doh - sorry. Links should work now.

Supplemental nursing system

www.medelabreastfeedingus.com/products/breastfeeding-devices/51/supplemental-nursing-system-sns

I expect you could hire one here

www.medela.com/UK/en/breastfeeding/products/location-finder.html