8 day old baby doesn't seem to be taking anything from breast. How come?

[higgledy]

Hi, a friend recommended this site. I've just had my first baby, a bit premature and 5 pounds. I tried exclusively breastfeeding in hospital, had plenty of colostrum, milk came in around day 4, but baby kept losing weight. The paediatrician told me to top up with nutriprem, and she takes about 40 mls of this with a cup after every feed, and her stomach sounds quite empty.

I've also been hand expressing with an Isis. I can collect about 40mls from each breast quite quickly.

One breast got very bloody (like a graze over the nipple) and filled the pump with blood so I gave it a rest from feeding and expressing, and just hand expressed a bit until yesterday when I put it back on the pump. The other breast has been doing the whole breastfeeding load, and she's slow to latch, but sucks hard and I was told by every midwife that the latch was good.

But I couldn't work out why she was still so hungry for the top up, and not gaining weight (still hasn't regained birth weight, went down to about 4lbs7oz before top ups).

So I got some good electric kitchen scales and weighed her on them before and after a feed. She was on the working breast for over half an hour and there wasn't a single gramme change afterwards, ie, she seems to be taking literally nothing. She was sucking a bit on and off, but still seemed to be doing good strong sucking most of the time. Expressing on this breast afterwards produced loads of milk. But when I don't - I usually don't - express, it doesn't feel hard/full after a feed. I also put her on the bleeding breast for 5 mins and there was no change after that.

Then I topped up with the formula and she gained 40g.

Then I gave her the bleeding breast again, which is now just about mended today, for 15 mins, and she gained 25g.

So that breast seems to be working, but she hasn't been near it for about 4 days. But the one that she's been on all the time (she's 8 days old now), which is producing lots of milk, seems to be giving her nothing. But what is she doing when she's sucking on it for 30 minutes and how can absolutely nothing be entering her mouth when a pump takes it out so quickly?

Thanks in advance to anyone who knows about this.

Hi there,
First of all, well done on perserving with this. My dd is now a very happy and often naughty 21 mth old but your post bought it all back!
My dd also took the colostrum but due to some rather shoddy advice during a stay after a difficult labour in hospital, I too got the bloody nipple that never repaired. My mistake was to try and continue on both breasts, which meant the agony prevented me continuing to breast feed. Also my dd was 'properly latched on' as everyone told me but was constantly hungry. My story is I'm afraid I stopped, went onto formula and never looked back. However, having been around many more mums now and learning so much more about successful breastfeeding, my advice is:
It's common for a weightloss, but as your baby was prem, contact your midwife or a bf coach from NCT
Let that breast heal - sounds like the manual express is very effective.
I would encourage you to get her weighed by the midwife - not sure how effective the weighting after each feed will be at telling you about her overall development, there will be many factors at play and you will be better looking at weight over days rather than hours.
All my bf friends advice now is don't worry about the bottle breast confusion thing as much as is written, if you can express and she takes your milk, she's getting all your goodness that way and I know many mums who bf til 6-9mths who from very early on gave a bottle at nighttime.
Oh and a last little thing, I was racked with guilt about stopping bf. I am not advocating formula but I am advocating not feeling guilty about whatever decisions you make about feeding your little one. For me and my dd, it turned out to be a great decision and worked onderfully, my only regret is the wasted guilty tears!
Best of luck.

Higgledy, i feel so sorry for you and its so bloody hard, i know how you feel, i had problems with my firdt child, i had thrush on my nipples and the pain was awful.

I gave up and used formula and never ever looked back, said kid is now a strapping 19 year old rugby player so it did hiom no harm. btw i sucessfully bf my other two children so its jusrt the luck of the draw i think... whatever you do dont feel guilty and best of luck... if yoiu stop bf well at least you tried mate..xx

higgledy - have you phoned the nct or la leche bfeeding helplines? are there any surestart centres near you with bfeeding drop-ins? they are all very helpful - much more so than your health visitor will probably be.

Keep checking your thread - there are lots of really helpful people on here and they will help you out.

my baby took over two weeks to regain her birth weight and is now still bfeeding well at 6.5 months - the situation can improve massively with the right help - dont give up...

nct helpline is 0300 330 0771 8am-10pm btw.

You need some proper, qualified help with this. You are not likely to get it from a MW, a HV or a paed I'm afraid, as very few of them have proper training on breast feeding. You really do need to speak to a BF counsellor or ideally see one at a www.thebabycafe.co.uk/L/BC_Nearest.php Baby Cafe]] or something similar.

Some general pointers - breasts need stimulation from either breast or pump or they will stop producing milk. Something like about 8 times a day is the minimum to keep supply going for a newborn. So whilst giving a sore boob a rest for a while is understandable, in the long term it could affect your BF.

Also, babies will often take a lot of milk in a bottle straight after a BF but it doesn't mean they weren't satisfied by the BF. It's just that the milk in a bottle more or less falls out and so they take it. It is no indication of whether they have fed from the breast. I'm not saying you should stop top ups as until you have spoken to someone who really knows what they are talking about, the priority is that your DD needs milk.

You do need to be aware that feeding from a bottle can cause nipple confusion - even if many babies are okay with having both from a young age. And expressing milk to feed in a bottle when you can feed direct from a breast is very hard work and not at all the same as BF, so it is to be avoided if you can at all get the hang of BF proper.

I hope you get some help - good luck

Sorry, that should have been the link

Higgledy, hi, sorry it's been so tough. But it sounds as though you've got plenty of milk so the chances are this is fixable (you need tiktok to pop on to this thread!). It's perfectly normal for a baby to lose weight in the first 10 days or so - however as your lo was prem it may be that keeping an eye on the weight is more of an issue. How much has she actually lost?

AFAIK the easiest ways of telling whether a baby is taking enough bm are by checking for plenty of wet/dirty nappies and whether the baby is alert. Does this sound like your dd?

I would stop the weighing before/after feeds. It really isn't reliable and I worry it will just make you lose confidence in yourself.

BTW, is there a reason why you're giving her nutriprem and not the bm you're expressing?

Thanks very much for all the replies!!!

quote: I would stop the weighing before/after feeds. It really isn't reliable and I worry it will just make you lose confidence in yourself. BTW, is there a reason why you're giving her nutriprem and not the bm you're expressing?

I'm giving her both, it's just that I haven't been expressing from both breasts after every feed because I've usually had her on the breast over half an hour and it's very painful, so she wants more. And the paedeatrician has told me I have to get her weight up, so I'm giving her as much as she takes, which is more than just the expressed.

I'm still giving her from the cup, not the bottle, but in the middle of the night, it's really hard to start all that spilling and sipping business, which also takes up to an hour, immediately after a breastfeed.

I know it sounds crazy, weighing. I've done it once. It's not to try to work out if she's putting on weight! I literally wanted to see if any liquid had transferred from my breast into her body, which would be unequivocal from the weigh. And so it was: right breast, no change whatsoever, formula, went up by the ml/grammes equivalent, left breast 26g in about 5 minutes feeding. So it's not about measuring her body fat, it was a literal immediate liquid transference thing - someone I know said they had their breastfeeding tested that way in a breast clinic.

I'm going to get on to the hospital's breastfeeding dept tomorrow now that I know something is wrong - hope they do weekends.

And to hooray and thebody: thanks for what you said. It's nice to be given permission to give up - I know that's not exactly what you were doing and it's my choice, but I haven't really slept much since the birth, and it's good to know that if I give up it isn't going to kill her. I haven't given up yet, but if I'm giving her nothing, it's only making her weaker forcing her to suck for an hour to get 0mls.

Higgleday - I wonder if you have thought about whether dd weed during/straight after the bf when you weighed her?

Congratulations, and good luck

hi higgledy, hope you didn't mind the questions - i had real problems bf-ing my (not prem) ds when he was born and got myself stuck in a cycle of feeding, expressing, feeding, expressing... it can be exhausting and i think you're clearly doing a great job to be persevering! i'm sure some more experts will be along to offer some support; good advice there from theprovinciallady too.
good luck

If she'd weed it would have been caught in the nappy, I couldn't have lost anything, it was straight from breast to scales. No change. Very depressing, especially when 40mls of formula appeared on the scales like magic.

I don't mind the questions at all! Was worried I was going on and on.

Oh sorry, am using my sister's computer and forgot to log in and out again; it's her laptop because I can't get to a computer.

She is also pregnant but couldn't breastfeed, so is no use with whether the latch works.

I would reiterate what Plady said about the baby cafes as well - even the hospital bfeeding experts (in my experience) can lack knowledge so you are better off with the nct etc.

Another question to add - in the breast she isnt getting anything from can you feel the letdown?

I don't know what letdown is supposed to feel like! The unused breast was rock hard until I expressed from it, but now both breasts are soft, that's why I couldn't believe she wasn't getting milk, I thought we were both good at breastfeeding but she was just starving because a month premature.

I'm going to keep giving breast and hope she will do it when she's stronger, and call the numbers linked to above in the meantime.

how are you today higgledy?I would either put her to the breast or express if she wont every couple of hours so that your supply is maintained.

how to describe letdown? its a sort of burning rushing feeling in your breast and it will become harder as the milk starts to flow. Lots of people dont feel it though even though so dont worry about that.

what did the nct say?

I called and was told to call again next week if it continued improving - because weirdly a different position seemed to give me the latch back more like it was in the beginning, when I think it might have worked and she stopped less, so it may have been a temporary glitch. I'm not getting the letdown, but she's taking less top up today, unless I'm imagining it. So fingers crossed. Annoyingly, have a small crack on the other nipple now! I hope we're beginning to get it, though, and am now more used to hand expressing when it hurts and dh is now great at sterilising, so we're all set up for another week's trying.

well done - that all sounds really positive - apart from the crack I mean.

are you topping up with ebm or with formula?

Oh good for you, I am glad things seem to be moving forward.

I never felt the letdown and it used to worry me but everything was fine in terms of supply.