Breastfeeding after being tube fed?

[NicolaSeal]

Hi there. Ill be induced next week, having my baby in London so we can be near GOSH. He has a heart condition which means he'll need surgery after birth & we'll probably stay in hospital for up to 4 or 5 weeks. During this time, he'll have to be tube fed & Ill do my best to express. My question is...are there any mummies out there who have been in a similar situation & managed to establish breastfeeding after a hospital stay? This is my second child, so I know all the other issues that can come with breastfeeding & im not going to give myself a hard time over it if it doesn't work out. Ill have lots of other things to worry about, but just wondered what to expect.

My grandson was v premature (25 weeks) and was tube fed but came out of hosp at 36 weeks and was fully breast feeding by then. Before his early arrival my daughter was a bit sceptical about whether she wanted to bf or not but when she was feeling so helpless as he was in the nicu the expressing and subsequent feeding of her milk felt like she was doing at least something useful to help - it gave her a purpose - and then when he finally latched on and breastfed - we were all in tears - even the nicu staff! So it is possible.. hope all goes well next week.

I breastfed my DS after he had been tube fed for 8 days. He latched on straight away, no problems.

Hope all goes well for you.

I bf my ds after he was tube fed for 3 or 4 days. It was not completely straightforward as he was not interested in latching and staying latched on at the beginning. But we persevered and got there in the end :-)

I bf my DD1 after she was tube fed for a fortnight having spent.the first week in NICU in a coma. It was bloody hard work because although I had expressed all her feeds her demand was greater than my supply and she also expected instant gratification re full tummy, always woke starving hungry.

It was tough. But I eventually fed her past her second birthday

Yes! He's just feeding now. He was drip and tube fed for a week. Then switched to BF. I expressed for tube. Then got help before we left the hospital to get him feeding. I also got expert help privately once out, e.g. BF counsellor. It was fine.

This may not matter to you, but just in case, it's useful to know... If they say you don't have enough milk expressed you can ask for donated breast milk rather than formula. I did. And they then decided I had enough after all. I was very sceptical that they actually asked to make their lives easier...

Amd wishing your son the very very best, friends had something similar at GOSH

DS was tube fed for a day or so, then I moved onto bf. When DS is big enough you can nurse him while they give a top up feed through the tube, so that he starts to associate boob with his tummy getting full.

Expressing is hard work, but you should be able to work out a pattern that is right for you.

Hope everything goes well - I only had a week to worry about my prem baby, knowing that you will have complications further in advance must be so hard. Good luck

I mix fed after my son was tube fed in scbu for a few days. He used to get very sleepy on the breast, so he was bottle fed a mixture of expressed breast milk and formula (when I couldn't express enough) in addition to what he took from me. He had trouble maintaining his blood sugar levels, so the hospital were very regimented in how much milk he needed. We successfully mix fed until about 9 months, when he gradually took less and less breast milk.

Just to say it didn't work for me. DD was a 36 weeker & had low sugars/jaundice so was in scbu 8 days & tube fed before moving onto bottles of EBM.

Despite lots of support from scbu, she just couldn't latch on. And despite a month of expressing, I was only getting 20 mls from my right breast. She then had a massive growth spurt & I couldn't keep up with her supply-wise, so made the decision to stop.

It's best to be determined but pragmatic - good luck x