4 day old, reflux :(

[noblegiraffe]

DD was born 4 days ago by ELCS and was very mucousy and reluctant to feed for the first 2 days until she'd got rid of it all, I had to work hard to get her to bf every 6 hours. Since then feeds have increased in frequency but she still sleeps all the time and usually needs stripping and tickling to stay awake long enough to feed. She was weighed yesterday and has lost just over 10% of her weight which I was expecting, the midwife said to make sure she feeds at least every 3 hours and she'll be weighed again either today or tomorrow.

My milk came in yesterday afternoon and I have been trying to feed every 2-3 hours but she isn't taking much each time. I suspected when she was born that she had reflux as I could see her vomiting and swallowing quite regularly, but no vomit coming up. However, since my milk came in she has now started vomiting quite regularly, and this morning she has thrown up most of her feed as she came off the breast, and threw up the previous one before that.

Propping her basket up and keeping her upright is no help as she is vomiting while upright. She's also not happy and back arching and crying quite regularly.
Please help, how am I supposed to get her weight up if she's not keeping anything down? :(

[NorthernDuck]

@noblegiraffe thank you so much for responding and your message gives me so much hope. Yesterday during the day was a better day and so far I’ve managed to feed him upright and it has improved the sickness quite a bit, I’ve had a better night so far even though he’s only slept about 45 mins since 9pm, but he’s been feeding or needing winding/awake not screaming like last night so I’ll take that as a win!
the gp has also given me some more pain killers and enough to see me through to the other side of Xmas so hopefully I’ll be in less pain.
my mum also came yesterday and was super mum, she went via boots to get supplies! We now have loads of Muslins - I only had 3 originally as she said I wouldn’t need many 🤣 and extra cot sheets. It also meant my husband could have a decent sleep so he is a lot better too.
I will try to update how we get on in a few weeks incase there is someone like me in 10 years time madly googling at 2 am hoping for a miracle.
I hope you have a great Christmas!

[noblegiraffe]

Oh I'm so sorry you're struggling. If it's any consolation, I've reread my posts on this thread and I remember very little of it. I remember some tricky weigh-ins and the weird shivering, and having to try to wake her to feed by wiping her with a wet flannel. But it must have passed all very quickly because my main memory of her is of quite an easy baby.

I've just looked back through my photos of that time and I've found I took a photo of her weigh-in data. On my last post on this thread I said she'd lost 15g and there was another weigh-in in two days. On that next weigh-in she'd put on 40g. Then there was another one 5 days later and she'd put on nearly 200g and I guess they signed her off after that. It must have got easier soon after this thread given I stopped posting!

It's absolutely mad that women can have major abdominal surgery and then instead of being given time to rest and recover, we're handed a newborn to look after. Have you got anyone who could come round and put some washing on for you? My top tip for sicky babies is to cover everything in muslins. We owned so many muslins. Tightly wrapping the basket sheet in two muslins near the top meant that the sheet didn't need changing every time.

I hope everything turns around for you soon too. And it will pass, and then you'll too be looking at a 10 year old excited for Christmas and not really remember any of it!

[NorthernDuck]

@noblegiraffe I know you wrote this years ago but I’m going through exactly the same thing. My baby is 4 days old. I’m sat here in tears, he’s finally asleep but my hormones are raging and I’ve been trying to find ladies who have gone through the same thing to see if it improved.
We had an ELCS as well (at 39 weeks) unfortunately he was stuck and it was very traumatic for both of us. I was vomiting so much in theatre from the pressure they were putting on my stomach - I was almost converted to a GA because of the difficulties they were having. This has meant I’ve had a lot of trauma to my stomach area and affects what I can do in terms of feeding positions and burping etc.
He was very mucousy too and reluctant to feed, slept very well in hospital, it was commented on by the midwives about how well he was sleeping. He would fall asleep through feeds (and still does) and has lost 9.8% of birth weight.
He latches great and the midwives see this and the dirty nappies and think it’s fantastic, but he then unlatches himself. We were in children’s CAT unit yesterday as he’s dehydrated so got a feeding regime and are now mixed feeding him.
Since introducing the increased formula feeds yesterday (day 3) and my milk coming in he just pukes it all back up. He also screams and screams.
he also does the weird shiver thing you
mentioned too!

I’m just hoping you tell me it gets better. I feel wholly inadequate, I can’t feed my baby as I can’t feed him upright and we don’t have a pump, I can’t burp him, and I can’t sooth him when he is screaming. I also can’t make up bottles following the trauma of the section. My husband is exhausted and I just can’t help him. I’m an emotional wreck, my husband is totally sleep deprived he’s been up all night with the baby for 3 nights in a row and then when the baby is sleeping a bit in the day he’s looking after me trying to do washing as we have no clean bedding, babygrows, nightclothes etc due to baby sick. They’ve finally both gone to sleep and the baby is in his basket on the bed next to me but I’m dreading him waking up and having to call my husband through from the spare room to sort him. He looks ill from the lack of sleep and had a headache so bad before he went to sleep he was sick.

[noblegiraffe]

No, they weren't, and I did wonder a bit about how accurate they could be with a difference of 15g. She did a poo just before going on the scales, I wonder how much that weighed!

The doc mentioned formula top ups as a possible solution, but I know I've got loads of milk, it drips out at every feed and I'm soaked. Just need to get more of it into her, but she doesn't seem that interested in massive feeds.

Another weigh in on Thursday. Fingers crossed it goes ok.

[JiltedJohnsJulie]

Was it the same scales?

[noblegiraffe]

Well, I saw the midwife today and DD has lost 15g since her last weigh in, although she is still within 10%. I am as she has been feeding every hour since about 6am and had been feeding quite regularly before that. Plenty of wet and dirty nappies, which are now yellow, so milk is definitely going in.

Anyway, have an appointment booked at the docs later to check her over because as well as the weight loss she is doing this weird shivering thing every so often (has done since birth) that they want checking out.

So I went to the appointment feeling all positive and now I'm not so sure.

[JiltedJohnsJulie]

Fingers crossed here too

[blondieminx]

Awh, really glad things are much better today :) Fingers crossed for you that things carry on improving!

[noblegiraffe]

Honestly, what difference a day makes. Since yesterday DD has fed nicely with none of the awful screaming and hours long refusal of yesterday morning, just the odd bit of messing around which is fine. She has also been keeping more of it down, still a bit sicky but not in huge amounts. She slept better at night too, less uncomfortable.

So, I've no idea what was going on yesterday morning but I'm hoping it was a blip. Yesterday was also milk coming in major hormone surge weepy day, so not the best time for it to happen!

Thanks for your support. :)

[JiltedJohnsJulie]

Yes, my DS latched fine, gained weight and my nipples were fine. Turned out he had tt and upper lip tie. Has the mw been out yet? How was last night?

[blondieminx]

Just thinking of you this morning noblegiraffe, how's things?

[stargirl1701]

Record a feed on your phone to show MW. We did this with dd for silent reflux o show the GP.

[noblegiraffe]

She had another small feed, I tried the switch feeding thing so she had a bit from both sides, she threw up twice. It looked like a lot but it's hard to know how much went in in the first place. She hasn't done the awful screaming thing again which is good. I think I will get her weighed again tomorrow, if I knew her weight was ok I might fret less.

The midwife didn't check for tt, because she fed fine. Could tt be a possibility if she latches on ok and my nipples don't hurt?

[JiltedJohnsJulie]

Oh and did the mw check for tt today?

[JiltedJohnsJulie]

I'd give the MWs another call.

[noblegiraffe]

Yes, thanks. Have gone through most of the list! However, even when she is awake and alert and looking around she won't latch on.
I've managed to get her to take one side in the last six hours and she flat out refused to have anything to do with the other side, even after being given a bath, nappy change etc. She has also sicked some of it up.
This lack of feeding will affect my supply, won't it?

[JiltedJohnsJulie]

Can understand how upsetting his can be for you. Did you read the info on sleepy babies?

[noblegiraffe]

Well it's been more than 4 hours since that last feed and she hasn't had another one. She has slept and slept and we've had skin to skin for ages and I've offered her the breast and tried to latch her on and this has just ended up with screaming again. She then promptly went back to sleep. I don't know what to do if she won't feed.

[noblegiraffe]

Argh, after spending an hour trying to latch on a baby who wanted to feed but every time I tried to latch her on would push away arching, screaming and writhing and then vomit a little bit, the midwife turned up. She saw nothing of this and observed a baby who latched on perfectly and had a decent feed. After the feed she was weighed and was now within the ten percent. She then fed from the other side and without any hint of vomiting drifted off to sleep like an angel, and has slept since.

So she saw a baby who had weed and pooed ok, fed nicely and put on weight, nothing to indicate a problem. The scores of vomit soaked muslins look like they belong to a different baby. She didn't dismiss my concerns, wrote it all down and will phone back tomorrow to see how it's going. Immensely frustrating as I've been up all night and morning with an unhappy baby. Obviously I'm pleased that she's fed and settled and apparently doing well, but worried about the next time.

Do these things come and go? I don't really understand. My DS vomited copiously for months when he was a baby but was never bothered by it and this has seemed very different.

Thanks for all your replies by the way, it's good to hear other people's take.

[blondieminx]

Also meant to say alberta gave v good advice about making sure your concerns are recorded in your notes.

Also meant to say that I was told by my mw that newborn tummies are only the size of a blackberry (the fruit not phone, obv) so they only need a small amount of milk to fill them up.

[blondieminx]

What tiktok said, get the mw to observe a whole feed and aftermath.

Because baby isn't more settled in an upright position, if this vomiting goes on longer than a week I would insist on baby being given an ultrasound scan to exclude the possibility of plyloric stenosis.

Once that has been excluded, they should get on with prescribing something for the reflux.

My MW then HV kept telling me DD would grow out of her reflux but when I saw the GP she really listened and prescribed domperidone for DD which works by making the stomach process faster, pulling food downwards quicker so it can't be vommed back instantly. It's been life changing for us (over the course of the first month on it, we found we were doing two thirds less laundry!!!)

Please watch this short in case you are ever in the situation where baby is choking on vomit (happened to me when my DD was 6 days old - I'm a first aider at work and have done the baby & child first aid course too, so I knew what to do - but it was still so scary).

You will get through this and your DD is lucky to have such an on the ball mummy who is doing everything possible to get the problem with her digestive system sorted.

Let us know how you get on?

[tiktok]

Difficult start giraffe :(

It is difficult for HCPs to distinguish between 'normal' throwing up and the sort that indicates a problem, and the younger the baby, the more difficult it is. Have a good discussion with the midwife about this, and if poss, she should observe a whole feed, plus the aftermath. At 4 days, it could be within normal - unless there are really obvious symptoms, you may not get a definitive diagnosis yet.

Yes, skin to skin.....keep her on you, so you can respond really quickly to any sign she would accept the breast. Offer freely without fighting her :)

Hope things get better soon.

[AlbertaCampion]

We ended up back in hospital when he was a month old, after he still hadn't regained his birth weight, and prescribed medicine that did the trick. Now he's a chubby happy wee thing, and the reflux is all but gone.

Just keep feeding, and get through these first few weeks. You'll be fine.

[noblegiraffe]

Thanks for replying. Latch etc are ok, when she's on it's definitely going in, but it takes so long to get her on - she won't open her mouth or latches on then slides straight off or is so asleep that getting her to feed even more often is a real struggle. And now when she does feed it is coming straight back up. Seeing her in pain is tough too.

Alberta, how was your DS treated?

[AlbertaCampion]

KEEP GOING. That's all you can do at this stage. Raise your concerns with midwife on a daily basis and try to make sure it goes into your notes. My DS had terrible reflux: we had a hard time getting the medical pros to take us seriously ("oh, all babies are sick"; "oh, there must be a breastfeeding problem" - the latter because he wasn't back to his birth weight after three weeks).

A lot of babies have reflux to a certain extent, and it passes. Hopefully your baby will be one of those. But in case your baby isn't, make your concerns heard now. And feed every two hours, yes: if your baby is bringing a lot/all of it up, every little drop you can get inside counts.