Pls help, crisis of confidence

[Theochris]

Hi, I'm BF my 2nd DC. 14 days today, just had my (lovely) HV visit. My DS was 7.1 at birth and now is 7.13 (tracks the 25 centile) so all good so far. However he is still a bit jaundiced and the protocol my HA work to is at 14 days if still jaundiced need to go back to hospital. So I have to take him to pediatric AE tomorrow. I thought he was doing OK as it was a lot worse and has started to fade but the fact that we have to go to the hospital has filled me with doubts.

The other thing is she pointed out that he has a tongue tie. Now I had already noticed this as my other DC also had one (though not as bad as his). She asked if I wanted to get it sniped. I said I don't unless he seemed to actually have a problem feeding. He doesn't seem to so far, isn't slipping of latch, plenty of wet and mustard yellow nappies and good weight gain. I have no soreness. Is there a reason I should get it snipped?

FWIW I fed my other DC well into the second year.

Pls reassure me starting to feel a bit crap.

I don't think you have anything to worry about.

His weight is good, and paediatricians will simply be checking to make sure everything is ok.
Stand your ground with them and they'll be fine.

I've no experience of jaundice or tongue-tie specifically, so hopefully someone else will be along soon.

iirc from dd2, 5 mths ago, she was still jaundiced at 14 days so they do a blood test to rule out some condition, name of which currently escapes me (sleep deprived ), and then monitor until 21 days. it would have been at that point we got sent to hospital here for further tests but it had all cleared up by then. my m/w and my sil, a peds consultant, both told me that jaundice normally clears slower in bf babies than ff ones and not to worry if weight gain was good.

hopefully you just have to go in for a blood test first.

no experience on toungue ties, sorry.

good luck.

I noticed the tt in my ds on day 1 as feeding was harder than with dd. I asked mw who said if his gain is OK to leave it. However I couldn't get into feeding, it never felt calm and eventually I got the hv to watch us feed and she was like 'ahh yes you do have a problem' and we got it snipped the next week. It made a HUGE differenence. However if you have no problems I wouldn't worry (though it is the easaiest thing in the world and he barely noticed)

DS1 had tongue tie and managed to feed fine - he had it snipped at 2 yo on the wishes of DH as he has tongue tie and waqnted it doing for speech and hygiene reasons. He seemed to find BF easier than FF which he started at 5 months and it would end up everywhere!

DS2 (no tonugue tie) was still a bit jaundiced at 6 weeks - the midwives and health visitor just phoned the hospital a couple of times and were felt that it was fading. Apparently his got so bad due to the bruising caused by his rapid delivery - he was 10 lbs 14 ozs. He was BF and gaining weight well too. Your hospital just sounds a bit more careful - i'm sure you have nothing to worry about.

Thanks for your responses

I'm reluctant to get the tt sniped unless it turns out he has a real problem. I'm hoping it will just stretch.

My hv is really nice and just mentioned it, in case I had problems, but is happy for me to wait and see. She was also really apologetic about the 14 day referral, said that it was no longer left to her discretion. I just thought I'd mention that as with this one and my last all the HV I have meet have been incredibly supportive (of BF and in other matters). In fact she said to me when passing me a leaflet on the clinic times, that they were trying to get away from weighing for it's own sake and just look at the overall health of the baby and offer any support that the family felt they needed. I guess I'm quite lucky.

That sounds good Theochris. Hope it goes well.

Is his going back to hospital just for heel prick tests? Dd had to do this, but the results were ok, and her jaundice did eventually go. Now that the weather is improving a bit can you get him outside to make the most of the available sunlight?