5 month old ds in hdu, advice please?

[discombobwotsit]

am en route to hdu at specialist hospital, ds hasn't fed since 9 last night, have expressed at 10 am today and will do again once settled at hdu

he is currently stable but don't know what's wrong, they've said i can't feed him yet till they know more, possible respiratory problems too.

he keeps making signs he wants to feed which is awful as i can't respond - what can i do to try and ensure we can carry on bf (providing he is well enough of course)? He has been ebf till now, no formula or solids.

am a total mess after blue light to a+e this morning, feel so helpless at mo - is there anything i can do / should be doing??

Am just coming on to offer support. I am not someone who knows about BF but someone will come along soon and advise.

I hope he is ok soon (hugs) xx

Horrible

I would suggest asking what they normally do in these situations and ask to talk to the infant feeding coordinator if in doubt, once you get more information/diagnosis. I'm sure they'll have those hospital grade pumps if necessary as they must deal with this a lot. You might also want to pump for comfort if you can't feed directly.

I hope he makes a speedy recovery :). Pls also remember if he has to have a bit of formula that's fine :)

thanks both for your kind words. he is stable here + busy chewing his fingers so must be feeling better, resps still high though

lois, thank you,i will speak to the infant feeding coordinator if needs be - I've asked the registrar about feeding + he is going to get back to me soon with an answer, he is waiting for a metabolic specialist to review i think.

have been allocated parents accommodation so i can express, am going to send milk home with dh for now to put in freezer + hope that i can feed direct soon. I know formula will be ok but have come this far so want to continue bf if poss - i fed ds1 till he was 2 so want the same for ds2

Oh yes of course he should have bm....so glad he's having a chew of his fingers and that you've got accomodation!

I hope tonight is ok and he's on the mend.

still stable but have been told can't feed for at least 36hrs wile waiting for test results, very hard when he keeps making feeding signs :(

will just keep expressing + hope for the best, I just want him to get well now, I guess feeding is the least of my worries at the moment :(

What's the problem Discombob? Do they know yet?

some indicators of infection but also blood shows possibility of metabolic problem so they want to get metabolic results back before they will let me feed him, as it could affect it if he has an underlying condition

it is so hard because he obviously wants to feed, i just hope that he will be able to feed if they let me

That sounds scary...is he on a drip? I can't blame you for just thinking about feeding him! Poor baby. He will be able to soon...sending positive thoughts to you and baby too.xxx

thank you Mrs, yes he is on a drip, iv fluids etc, into a femoral line as that's the only place they could get a line in after 2 hrs of trying, they also did a line into his thigh bone first as they needed to get fluids in when he was first admitted - very scary stuff + hard to watch such a tiny baby go through it, i would swap places in a heartbeat.

am going to try + get some rest now before i get up to express and check on him.

thanks again for your thoughts

Just loads of skin to skin where possible, express off what you can.
I expressed and dumped for three weeks as I was unwell and away from dd. I was lucky if I got more than two pumps a day off but once home we curled up at home and restarted. She feed until she was 2 years old, so please don't panic.

Hope ds is ok and they work out what's going on ASAP.

thanks lisad, that's reassuring to know it can be restarted after such a long break. That must have been heartbreaking for you to be away from your dd for so long.

I've managed to get some rest, just doing first express of the day, then will resume the bedside vigil, hope today brings good news

thanks Welove, I don't feel like a great mum at the mo - just went to ds and its made him more upset, he can't understand why I'm there and not picking him up + feeding him :(

it made his heart rate + resps go up so I've left him again, I really hope this isn't going to destroy his trust in me. I'm going to push to feed him today, surely it can't be that bad for him? And he's in the right place if anything happens.

I want everything back to normal :(

Hi disco, so sorry you're going through this and your poor little DS Just to say that my ebf DD has been admitted to hospital for oxygen and tube feeding twice, once at 8 weeks (meningitis) and once at 4 months (bronchiolitis). On each occasion she didn't feed from me for 48 hours or so.

Your supply is well established 5 months in but try to express as much as you can anyway - the hospital should be able to lend you a hospital grade pump and all the kit. Both times when my DD was discharged we had a period of 24-48 hours where she fed like a newborn but then things went back to normal after that.

Good luck and wishing your DS well x

Hope he is on the mend soon.

You may find that they want to give him expressed milk first as that way they can monitor how much he has at a time to ensure he is getting enough but not too much. (if he is having respiritory problems then too much milk can make breathing harder)

thanks everyone, I've managed to settle him back to sleep now, they let me give him drops of sugar water which he lapped up.

I've got my own electric pump here but have been dumping the milk, will save the next lot in case they want to use that, thanks for the tip Sirzy

And Mrs, i think my singing would upset him more ;-)

consultant due soon so we'll see what they say

Don't dump anymore, ask for hospital to fridge it, I'm sure they will, just remember to label and date it.
I only dumped mine because it was toxic

It horrible seeing them hungry, sugar water does help though although i wanted to kill the nurse who was giving him it every 2 minutes

What treatement are they giving him other than the fluids?

it is just the worst thing to have them look at you and want feeding when you can't oblige. Consultant said no to feeding today in case it overloads his system, hoping the results come back negative + i can feed tonight

they are doing iv antibiotics in case its an infection, any other treatment will depend on results, consultant has asked for them to be rushed through so hopefully will get an answer by end of day. He seems ok in himself now, all vitals still stable :)

discombobwhatsit - just wanted to send my best wishes- hope your DS is ok and you have been able to resume feeding.

wotsit! Sorry!

Hi there I hope your baby is feeling much much better now. Just to let you know that when one of my dd s was 8 weeks olf she was in HDU for 3 days and then on isolation for a further 8 days. She had to be fed thru tubes and I was so stressed I could only produce a few teaspoons of milk. She had been ebf til then. I allowed her to be given formula and for 5 days that s what she had with a few drops of breast milk. As soon as she could I had her back on the breast, got lots of help with the hospitals breast feeding practioner and she ebf until she was 17 months old. Get help, get rest and before long it will all settle down. I wish you both well xxxx

thanks all, just came back to update, was allowed to feed eventually after 3 days, once we got a negative result for metabolic disorders (which was a massive relief!)

he latched on straightaway and has fed well since then, has also improved and is getting more rest because he isn't starving hungry. They've identified a problem with one of his kidneys so he is staying in for more tests + scans, but have just left hdu due to him improving so much.

the kidney problem caused a serious infection + they have said we got him to hospital just in time so it was a very close call. Hopefully he is now on the mend and we can deal with the underlying problem.

thanks Halfcups - sorry you had to go through so much, but glad it worked out for you + your dd - hopefully i can continue now until ds wants to stop :)