Annabel Karmel wants people to post questions to Clare Byam- Cook - dare you!

[RubyBlueberry]

Have been on AK forum for a while (twas good for baby food recipes) and today she has sent everybody messages asking to post BF questions ... to Clare Byam Cook .... DOUBLE DARE YOU!!

Look here this page

Why are all these "professionals" so touchy? If they were any good they'd welcome a question or two....

mumofmonsters:

Dehydration is a very rare but serious consequence of a baby not getting sufficient milk; it happens in the first week or so. It is avoided by effective breastfeeding - getting milk A into baby B.

Nothing to do with not enough milk, really - mother may have loads but baby may in these rare instances not be removing enough.

Simple checks on the baby in the first days make dehydration virtually 100 per cent avoidable.

It's v. important not to make this sound like something every bf mother is at risk of - it's rare, should be easily spotted before the baby becomes ill, and treated quickly by improving the frequency or effectiveness of the bf, or even by expressing and getting the milk into the baby otherwise.

After the first week or so, it's not a risk at all unless the baby is ill for some other reason.

it is a very woolly statement, MoM. course a baby can get dehydrated but not usually if she is putting her baby to the breast as often as her baby cues and she is not hurrying solids - assuming that a woman who is weaning her baby onto solids also has an established supply.

a case for BLW, no?

the exact same can be said for a ff baby by changing one phrase of the above

however in the early days of weaning, bm will provide all the fluids a baby needs till i believe the baby starts to drop milk feeds.

xposts with TT who is talking about clinical dehydration. i am not - mine is more about an olser baby being given, dunnu, too much organic bread or ryvita rusks for example and getting bunged up out the other end.

Yep - two different things, foxy

I am indeed talking about a clinical condition. You're talking about a baby being a bit thirsty and maybe a tad constipated.

Not sure what AK was referring to, sorry.

I understand it is very rare but my exclusively breastfed on demand 1st child was hospitalised with severe dehydration at 3 months. My milk disappeared overnight. She became fussy at the boob and advice given was to feed feed feed which I did for 3 days resulting in first a miserable baby and then a very sick baby, I didn't know my milk had gone. So yes rare but does happen and not just in first week or because mum isn't offering enough

so clearly not meant in the scaremongery way that AK put it?
it sounded like babies get dehydrated from breastfeeding but i understand i may have read it wrong.

I genuinely did not know the answer to that by the way

scaredoflove, how difficult for you....

I have never heard of clinical dehydration happening spontaneously like this, in a baby of this age, and I know the literature well, so I am not going on personal experience here alone.

Sudden apparent loss of milk can happen (very rarely) as a response to severe shock - it's temporary, and is a curtailing of let down, not production.

Without more info I can't really say what happened in your case - whatever, it's highly unusual.

don't worry tiktok, my bfc was flumoxed too! there was no shock, my periods had come back the previous month so MAY have done something who knows?! Once she was out of hospital I carried on feeding her hourly for a few weeks on top of bottle but my milk never returned. She happily latched on and comfort sucked tho

I bottle fed the next one after just 6 weeks but fed no3 for almost a year with no issues whatsoever

Like I said, I know it's rare but it has happened at least once

I agree with you about the poss link with early periods return, scaredoflove. Not much point now, but I'd be looking at what happened in the very early days (to do with the prolactin receptor theory - ie frequency of feeding calibrates the supply long-term), length of time between feeds (sleeping longer than the average might not be good for a supply that could be marginal), baby's weight gain and so on.

up to that point she fed 2-3 hourly, on demand, 24 hours. She was a calm baby but not overly sleepy (unlike the fed for a year no 3 child that slept through the night from birth but fed hourly through the day) Never had a bottle or dummy and was gaining weight at a high rate (1lb one week, on average 8+ oz per week, born 7lb - was about 14lb at 3 months!) I thought I had it sussed lol obviously some kind of freak breast failure but I like to warn that it CAN happen to other mums and to watch those wet nappies!

Rant warning!

Quoting AK on her website

"Sometimes babies can become dehydrated if a mum continues to breastfeed and is not making enough milk for some reason. There was a programme about this on Womans Hour on Friday and I think you can listen to the debate on their website."

CBC appeared in this debate, I know because my mum rang up to tell me about the programme, both my babies were taken back into hospital with dehydration as well as weight loss. Tiktok, this isn't that uncommon, as I have met other people the same thing happened to. However, CBC's argument which is being repeated by AK here is that the dehydration is a result of women not having enough milk. She was putting forward this argument in Woman's Hour (which you can Listen Again to on the BBC website, it's the last item on Friday's programme and will be available until 10 am this Friday coming. There are a number of recent newspaper articles in which she puts forward this view too.

I'm quite sure that I had enough milk, I just didn't have the technique right to transfer my milk to my babies effectively. The hospital also prescribed something to boost my supply, however, it wasn't a supply issue, though supply was being affected by not establishing latch etc effectively. First time round, I had my confidence that I could breastfeed or indeed be trusted to look after a baby at all destroyed. As a result ds1 was formula fed with a tiny bit of expressed milk for the first few weeks.

Second time I had to keep asking for help, and having difficult discussions with paediatric doctors, nurses and health professionals who work in a hospital with pro-bf policies but are not experts on bf and have clearly had their opinions shaped by arguments such as those put forward by CBC. I've managed to exclusively breastfeed ds2 for about 7 weeks now.

One idea that CBC and several doctors/nurses at the Whittington have in common is the assumption of a low milk supply, and methods of "proving" this which just knock the confidence of a woman who's been made to feel she's starving her baby even further.

Hello!

This is my first visit to this site! waves

I sent a link:
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/7867686.stm

to the office that runs my breastfeeding group, and they did a little digging around.

They sent me this:
www.babyfriendly.org.uk/items/item_detail.asp?item=559&nodeid=

For those of you who cannae be arsed clicking another link, it says this:

Statement on hypernatraemic dehydration and breastfeeding News item 18 February 2009 News
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Media articles published this week carried stories about research being carried out to establish how many babies are readmitted to hospital with neonatal hypernatraemic dehydration (NHD), suggesting that these figures were on the rise because of an increase in the number of women heeding the ?breast is best? message.

While more research into NHD is to be welcomed, the implication that breastfeeding itself is directly linked to an increase in the number of babies suffering from NHD is inaccurate and potentially alarmist. Almost every woman is capable of successfully breastfeeding her baby if she receives appropriate information and support. The benefits of breastfeeding include greatly reduced risk of hospitalisation for illnesses such as gastroenteritis and respiratory diseases, reduced likelihood of diabetes and better mental development. In other words, the benefits of breastfeeding to the individual and society are extensive and profound, and we must take great care to protect and support breastfeeding.

Unfortunately many mothers in the UK do not receive the support they need during and after childbirth, to ensure that breastfeeding is successful and prevent basic problems such as poor attachment or insufficient milk flow which can, in extreme cases, lead to dehydration. The reason they do not receive this support is because many health workers are not trained sufficiently to provide adequate care or notice when things are going wrong. This coupled with poor or absent routine practices and policies for the early detection and treatment of problems can leave babies vulnerable.

The World Health Organisation and UNICEF are addressing this problem by encouraging all health-care facilities to participate in the Baby Friendly Initiative which requires that staff be trained and polices introduced to protect breastfeeding and ensure safety - practices that help mothers avoid the acute distress caused by breastfeeding problems.

Really hope this helps!

Eeeekk will preview posts in future!

Hi littleladybug, welcome to mumsnet. Um, where did you hear of this site? It wasn't on another site aimed at parents was it?

I appreciate the story you've posted as a response to the stories about the link between breastfeeding and dehydration (in which a certain individual seems to have played a part, speaking as a breastfeeding expert).

Aye I usually browse AK :D

Which certain individual? Eeek! Who is the expert? Man, there is so much tongue-in-cheek and so many disclaimers and stuff, I'm finding it hard to keep up...

P.s. am not a moddy on AK, they would so never let me loose to edit folks' posts muuhawhawhawhawhaw :D

llb, Clare Byam-Cook has been quoted in quite a few newspaper stories on this subject, as someone who apparently knows about breastfeeding who is suggesting that women wanting to breastfeed is the cause of the problem.

Hope you'll stick around here or drop in again, but beware, mumsnet can be very addictive.

Ooooo really? That's a bit weird...

Don't tell me this site is addictive I soooo don't need to spend MORE time online!!!

So Fussymum might be from on here, eh? Go on, start volunteering - you know you want to!

elkiedee - hypernatraemic dehydration in a newborn is rare. This does not mean I disbelieve you when you say you have met a number of people whose babies were readmitted to hospital - but the statistics in a number of papers on this are pretty clear. If you want I can seek out some references to share with you.

Well the AK site has just crashed. Pooey. Do you guys have any chatty discussion forums or will I just take over this thread with inane, irrelevant jibberish?

It's never crashed like this before, not since the new site was launched. Hmm...

Do we have any chatty discussion forums?

So, I've taken to singing the Timmy Time theme tune to my weans at school... I think they reckon I'm a bit mental. Keeps me happy.

This is it. Inane jibberish has begun. Man. Off to log on to Yahoo...

chat threads here

Just press Active at the top of the page, thats the last 50 or so active conversations!!

has this thing kicked off yet?