newborn losing too much weight - help please

[shelley72]

So dd is 5 days old, has just been weighed and has lost 9% of birth weight. I need to get her weight up or she will be admitted to hospital tomorrow. What will they do to her?

I am trying to get her to feed as much as poss but she just falls asleep. I tickle her feet, blow on her but she's just sleepy. All ok in every other way. Have been shown how to hand express to get extra milk for her today.
Am so upset. Am training to be a peer supporter so am gutted to be having problems, even more so at the thought of giving formula.

Any one been in this position? Did it right itself? Am getting myself in a pickle about it, already have baby blues and this is last straw

My dd is 2 weeks old and only just regained er birth weight. She'd also lost 9% at day 3 then 6% at day 5. I just kept feeding her as often as I could and she has finally caught up. I didn't use formula or do anything else. Hope she picks up ion.

What else have you tried? Stripping her off? Changing positions? you might have to just get in bed and have a day of skin to skin, literally have her on your breast all day.
I wouldn't suggest getting her cold but maybe open a window? Bit of fresh air? As long as you keep her on you and keep an eye on her temp.

Yep we are skin to skin, she just has nappy on at minute with window open. Trying to encourage her to feed but she's just not interested. Had emcs so doing nothing but laying down at the minute anyway

Where there any drugs given during labour? Pethadine is notorious for making baby sleepy.

Is her latch ok? Sounds a bit mad but my DD2 latched perfectly but didn't ever seem to finish a boob, turns out her latch was enough to stimulate milk but not get the fatty milk. We're working on it and she is now gaining. I fed DD1 to 26months and three MWs checked DD2's latch so you'd have thought someone would have noticed!

Have you tried expressing drops onto her lips/ into her mouth?
Hope I'm not sounding patronising!

Oh an I had a planned CS and was told some of the drugs can make baby sleepy - don't panic just yet - canyou hget to a breastfeeding group?

Congratulations on your lovely new daughter and try not to worry too much. Loads of bf babies take a while to start gaining after birth. I'm sure the hosp are just getting you in to rule out any serious probs and your sleepy little one will wake up and start gaining soon.

Breast compressions might help her get a bit more at each feed. Worked a treat for my tiny, sleepy, jaundiced, tongue tied twins!

Same thing happened with my ds. He lost 11% by day 5. Had to make our way to hospital and had to bf on demand, but also 3 hourly top up with formula. Really didn't want to top-up but panicked and didn't know any better (plus didn't really feel as if we had much choice!). We were sent home next day as he started gaining weight but for us could never get to EBF unfortunately - however am still partially BF many months on. Spend all day in bed, rest eat and drink plenty, maybe consider a breast pump - some people are very successful with manual pumps, some need electric. I wish I'd bought a double electric pump straight away as spent first few weeks spending hours a day pumping! I didn't get much support from midwives or HV to reduce formula so contact local BF support group asap. Good luck!

A loss of 7-10% in a BF baby is considered normal - please don't ignore medical advice, but do some research of your own (consult a lactation specialist, get on google etc). It soumds to me that the preferred solution from some medical teams is to 'manage' the situation with formula, and if you don't want this don't feel panicked until you know all the facts.

Hope someone will be along to offer better, medicsl advice. You're doing great x

This is from Kellymom:

A 5-7% weight loss during the first 3-4 days after birth is normal. A 10% weight loss is sometimes considered normal, but this amount of weight loss is a sign that the breastfeeding needs to be evaluated. It?s a good idea to have a routine weight check at 5 days (baby should be gaining rather than losing weight by day 5), so that any developing problems can be caught and remedied early.

Yes, my DD lost 11%. She was very sleepy and not interested in feeding. I did stripping off, tickling feet etc to keep her awake, circular stroking of her head helped too. Ruthlessly offered feeds every 2-3 hours and persisted till she ate some. Expressed milk onto a spoon and dripped it into her mouth - this really helped as it reminded her what she should be doing and she would often then latch on.

We had a tough 2-3 weeks of regular weigh-ins and it was bloody hard work setting alarms at night for feeding etc, but she started to gain weight just fine and I never used formula or expressed for topping up.

Ok I have just given her the tiny bit that I've hand expressed this morning - she had undiagnosed tongue tie which was snipped 2 days ago but nipple damage was already done. Hand expressing a bit gentler on the nipple! She wouldn't take the bottle so just kind of tipped it into her mouth. Going to feed every couple of hours and hope for best.

Would be devastated if she was given formula. Am happy to express but not formula. She has just had her fourth poo of the morning - still not chicken Korma esque though. And she is weeing a lot too.

She was emcs, after going into labour. Should have been an elective but had other ideas. Her sister was elcs and never had any trouble with her feeding apart from she never stopped.

Just feel awfully worried. Have had baby blues badly and this hasn't helped this morning at all.

Could be sleepy because it's so hot. Try feeding in a room with a fan on and windows wide open, or sitting next to the fridge with its door open. My DC when tiny got desperately sleepy and both dropped a lot of weight at first. Both summer born during heatwaves.

But DS2 did have problems - reflux and twisted gut which made feeding painful, so do look into it.

Of course you don't want to feed formula, and can probably express all she needs, but if for some reason you have to use formula, please don't feel bad about it. Babies thrive on it. It's not poison. If it's the only option at some point, to helping her grown, don't feel bad about taking it up. We're there to help our babies, not pin our belief systems on them from birth.

My DS lost 11 per cent and didn't get back to birthweight until day 27, by which point we'd been sent back to hospital twice.

We only got to birthweight in the end with formula top-ups. I tore myself to bits over this at the time, and wept while buying the Aptamil in Boots. The sales assistant must have thought I was a nutcase.

But, in the end, I'm really glad we did it. Topping up with EBM wasn't working for us as my supply wasn't up to it. I think this was due to a combination of a horrendous birth and virtually no bfing support on the postnatal ward.
But, once I caved at around three weeks and gave the formula top ups, DS became stronger - and more awake! - packed on the weight and learned to breastfeed.

My supply then caught up, we dropped the formula top ups and now, at eight months, we're still breastfeeding.

The reason I'm saying this is, if everything else fails (tickling feet, skin to skin, spending days in bed, EBM top ups etc) and you do have to give formula, don't worry. It's not the end of exclusive breastfeeding, and it may indeed be the key to you and your DD sussing breastfeeding together.

Apatchylass hits the nail on the head when she says: "We're there to help our babies, not pin our belief systems on them from birth." I was in an absolute tizz over giving DS formula. I felt I'd failed. I wish the me from the future, with a healthy and fully breastfed DS, could have gone back in time to comfort myself seven months ago, when I was hysterical over a bloody carton of formula.

Good luck.

DD was very sleepy as a jaundiced late pre term newborn so I had to express and top her up after each feed using a little cup the hospital gave me. They suggested a syringe otherwise. I did this for,about a week and she gradually improved on the breast so I decreased then stopped the top ups. Also did lots of bottom chganging swpping sides, tickling etc to keep her going as much as possible.

I'm with you on this one. We've got until Thursday for her to start regaining (will be day 8). Baby swallowed a lot of fluid so is very rattly (birth was a burst and shoot) and I'm unwell with a chest infection plus extras so it's bloody awful.

Cried my eyes out at weighing, and feel under a huge amount of pressure. We're doing two hourly feeds but I thought this would be the baby I would be able to EBF and I would dodge hospital. The admissions of the other two were so difficult with bullying midwives and light therapy.

Sorry for getting jumbled there, it's a crap day.

Hi. My ds is now 12 weeks. At 3 days he had lost 16%. I had had a cs on the friday and we was weighed on the monday. I'd also had gd so I have been told this can increase weight loss.

We were readmitted to hospital. My milk had come in that morning. We stayed in for 3 nights expressing. They talked about tubes down his throat but didn't really mention formula. We had a room for our selves and they calculated he needed 56 mls every three hours minimum. I expressed and we fed him from a cup (to avoid nipple confusion with a bottle). It was amazing that he could just sip from the cup. They said to offer boob then top up with cup. We chose to do it the other way around as he'd become almost scared of the boob and we wanted to give him milk to take the edge off (as odd as that sounds! ). Then we gradually decreased the amount of cup and increased boob as my and his confidence grew.
One thing I will say is try all the positions. They were convinced that lying down or rugby holdwas right for is when my ds preferred feeding with me standing up andhim being vertical. I think this was because he was breech? We also used nipple shield to aid latch as I had small nips and he a small mouth. Gradually weamed him off those as well.

Have you tried expressing? It really saved us. I was getting 10ml about every half hr and felt very disheartened looking in the fridge at everyone elses full bottles. Only took a day of regular pumping to increase it to 100ml in ten mins!

I hope everything is ok. It was a tough week for us all but now we bf on demand. My son has not had any formula although even if he had there is nothing wrong with that. If you do decide to give formula as an interim measure I'd recommend giving it in a cup and cobtinue expressong. You can do it!

My DS was very sleepy. Every single time he fell asleep whilst feeding I woke him up by switching sides. On bad days I probably switched sides 10 times per feed!!

Please don't feel bad if you do have to FF.

One of the things I learned when my DC were tiny is that you have to adapt your expectations to every situation. I desperately wanted to EBF but for various reasons couldn't and like others here did mixed feeding for a while, BF with FF.

Other tips to add are to consider hiring a hospital grade double pump to make expressing easier and faster (Medela website can show you where they are local to you) and breast massage to help stimulate supply if supply is an issue (as well as compressions and swapping).

Good luck - it will be ok.

We changed his nappy to wake him up before a feed.

Please don't worry, 9% is not that bad and you sound like you're doing all the right things.

My DS lost 20% of his birth weight and had to be re admitted at a week old. He wasn't latching properly and as he was my first, I didn't know this.
He was an EMCS too. He was to be given 2 hourly formula by a nasogastric tube just for one day then was cup fed EBM. I was re admitted to the maternity unit and given BFing support until we cracked it.

Please don't be 'devastated' if your DD is given a bit of formula on medical advice, in order to stabilise them, it won't stop you from continuing too BF. I continued to EBF my DS for over a year.

The big lump is taller than me now!

All the best

Please don't worry. I second the pp who said don't ignore medical advice, but do your own research. Both my DCs lost 10% and took a few weeks to regain. I had emcs with dc1 and elcs with dc2. My milk didn't come in both times until day 4/5. I honestly think this is why the larger weight loss occurred. My MW with DC1 suggested expressed top up and formula top up, which we did. MW with DC2 was much more sensible, told me that 10% loss was perfectly normal and to keep doing what I was doing. I fed every 3 hours maximum, doing what you are - stripping, skin to skin, toe tickles, blowing, wet flannel. Woke DC at night every 3 hours too. DC1, I panicked and felt like the worlds worst mum. DC2, I felt confident that my milk was enough and it would come right (and it did! Weight gain is just slower when bf).

It took 2 weeks to fully regain birth weight, but now DC2 is thriving and putting on lots of weight (8 weeks old now). I think it was just a case of my milk being slow to come in, and giving DC time. I was never threatened with readmission to hospital, but some MWs were more panicky than others.

When did your milk come in? If you feel confident and have wet and dirty nappies, stick with it (though again, I'm not saying ignore medical advice).

Agree with other posters on not ignoring medical advice.

When I said I didn't know any better, I meant in terms of what to try first and asking for advice, not that I should have ignored the professionals. Baby needed feeding so I didn't think twice when the doctor advised to top up. If I was in the same situation again, I personally wouldn't hesitate to use formula to get through the first few days, but hopefully I'll be better equipped to make it a temporary thing next time.

Also, if you do end up using formula to get you through, please don't waste time feeling guilty about it. I spent weeks obsessing and now I feel guilty for being preoccupied feeling guilty in the early days!!! I now realise I was doing what was necessary to keep my baby healthy and am totally fine with it.

Best of luck!

If you need to top up, and you can't quite express enough, ask about donor milk.

Where are you based? I have recently helped another mum through peer to peer milk sharing - something you may want to consider as well, although you have to trust the other woman!

There are milk banks across the country - hopefully one near you.

I had the same issues with both my DD's, the first after an EMCS with every drug going and the second DD was 3 weeks early. Both lost over 10% and DD2 was readmitted for phototherapy. Topping up with a bottle had to take place at that stage, the medics didn't want her out of there for any length of time for feeding. Avoid it if you can.

In the first instance, I topped up with formula and beat myself up about it for months, and with the second DD topped up with BM as had no supply issues, just a really sleepy child. All the tricks in the book don't work in my view if you've got a child who just can't summon the energy to feed.

Far better in my view to get some milk into them in the fastest way possible. Sod the nipple confusion - it might take a few weeks of having to top up with a bottle a few times a day but in my experience they soon sort out which method of delivery they prefer. She will be much more alert within a few days and should start feeding well as soon as her weight comes back up and the drugs leave her system.

It is a total faff though, even more so if you are post emcs and in bed. Can you get some helpers to run around and sterilize stuff for you?