What advice for DSIS just given birth - baby in neo natal

[JamInMyWellies]

MY DSIS gave birth this morning and has not even held her baby.

She was 41wks spontaneous labour arrived at hospital at 11pm last night already 9cm, she didnt deliver until 11am forceps delivery apparantly all a bit of a mess. According to her DP the baby had a temp so they took her away immediatly she is now in an incubator with trauma to her head from forceps.

She is understandably a bit traumatised wants to BF but they have told her she cant hold her all she has done is stoke her hand through the incubator.

What advice can I give her re her rights to feed the baby etc also any goog outcome stories or just hand holding really....

skin to skin as soon as possible, she should start expressing preferably whislt sat next to and looking at her baby. expressing milk for feeding should be possible, definitely ask hospital if they have infant feeding co-ordinator or some such who can come and give her advice, local NCT should have breastfeeding counsellor available..

your poor sister , what a difficult time, hope her little one makes a full recovery very soon

thanks lulu she was whisked straight away sis is in tears as she doesnt know what is going on. Poor love was worried about giving birth there as it came out pretty much top of the list of crap maternity units.

Oh Jam your poor sis

Hopefully they are saying not to hold the baby as she has a very bad headache and is not tolerating being touched just yet. This should improve quickly though.

Like Lulu says, expres while looking at the baby although thia was not offered to me when i had the twins but i still managed ok. She wont get much, amybe nothing but it is still worth it to kick start the process.

If she has spoken to the doc then she may be able to insist on skin to skin, they could just not be geared up for it in that unit.

How is your sis? Her epidural (did she have one?) will be wearing off and the pain will be awful, tell her to ask for meds regularly and rest as much as she can. A wheelchair to see the baby may be a good idea.

Once they have assessed the baby and taken regular temps for a while they may put her on antibiotics. Is your sis on antibiotics, did she have a strep B test done in pregnancy?

I am sure it will all be ok, babies improve so quickly in this situation.

Fingers crossed, can you go and see her?

They may tube feed her so your DSIS will be able to express breast milk for them to feed her.
Make sure she tells the staff that she wants baby to be breastfeed.

She is couple of hours away and am at home with A until DP gets home think she is pretty whacked out on drugs so may not be terribly coherant right now anyway.

Have had a text to say the Docs have told her she might be able to hold her later if she improves. Fingers and toes crossed.

Jam, your poor dsis, have nothing to add really, agree with other posters about making sure staff know she wants to bf and expressing if possible.

hope she gets to hold the baby later.

Oh Jam, how agonising for your dsis. Plenty of good advice here. Can you make sure it gets to her dh/dp as he may be more able to fight her corner for her.

Congratulations to her and I hope the baby is in her arms very soon.

Oh Jam how worrying - sorry I have no advice but just wanted to let you know I have everything crossed that she has her baby in her arms and feeding her ASAP. Sounds like the hospital is a nightmare if they didn't keep her informed when they whisked baby away

oh no! why are they not letting her hold the baby??? what are their exact reasons??
sounds pretty sketchy to me.

she does need to start expressing if they won't let her feed baby.
if they let her hold the baby then she ought to be able to attempt to feed her too

How are things today.

They may not let her hold the baby for a few reasons. Sometimes baby needs oxygen and needs to be stabilised and check for infections.

Also if Mum isn't completely well.

I didn't get to hold ds1 until the following day. I was to ill.

Yes, she needs to express, but that can be hard. I wanted to fling the bl**dy machine at the wall, especially the first days when ds was not allowed to have my milk. But they keep every drop of colostrum in the freezer and feed it later - liquid gold they call it. She needs to be gentle on herself.

May be meconium got in the lungs, that causes an infection but will clear up with treatment.

Forceps marks can look a lot worse than they are.

Nurses in scbu are very focused on getting mum/dad- baby contact established pronto. dh and I changed nappies through the incubator and gave nasal tube feeds long before we could hold ds, so it is not a matter of her rights to feed the baby, they will not delay a second longer than needed.

Jam just holding hands and talking to her will help she will recognise her mums voice and it will help your sis bond even if she cant hold her. Get skin to skin as soon as she can but obviously when baby can cope with it. If she can not be in special care get a piccy of baby and some of babys mucky clothes/bedding (obv not dirty ones just smelly of baby) this will help her let down. Express during the night, I set my alarm for every 3 hours to ensure I woke up as I could sleep during the day whilst G in special care. Drink plenty of fluids (always though that an odd statement as how do you drink solids but hey ho).

The baby might not even be feeding at all yet she could be on a drip if not feeling very well to keep her hydrated. G did not feed for a couple of days as I refused to let him be formula fed and obv in my circs the milk was a bit slow coming in. He had TPN for a few days, then tube fed expressed milk.

I suggest she starts to express by hand especially if this is her first time - it is a bit gentler on your boobs. Get a syringe and suck up any little drops that pop out. It will probably only be little amounts to start with but will get more. It doesn't matter how little it is baby will benefit from it. This way it is ready to go straight down a tube if baby is tube fed and will freeze as it is if not feeding yet. Initially the amount I had would have been absorbed by the pipes/bottles of expressing any other way. One of my MWs gave me lavender oil to smell as it supposed to help although do not know for certain. Move on to the pump shortly after though to get the flow going and start getting volume esp as baby is large, but because she is large she will have some reserves.

Echo other suggestion that she gets some support whilst in hospital. She can tell hospital she does not want formula if she doesn't.

Rest as well, it will do her no good worrying although trying to tell her this may get you a punch on the nose . Even if she is not fed immediately she can still establish breastfeeding later on, she just needs to persevere.

Any news on the situation?

Thanks everyone, I spoke with her this morning. It appears the baby got some meconium hence being put in neo natal. She said the nurses have been fab. She has now been allowed to hold her and attempt to feed her but baby didnt want to know. They are encouraging skin to skin and putting her to the breast if she does not want to feed my sis is then trying to express apparantly nothing is coming out but at least they are trying. Hopefully her boobs will start doing their job soon and the baby will wake up enough to feed.

By all accounts she had a tricky birth tried pushing for 2 hours ventouse then forceps. Think she had been prepped for surgery by this point.

Going to try go and see her tom.

Thanks again.

glad things are looking up and that nurses did not disappoint.

sounds like baby is knackered from the difficult birth!

charleymouse thank you for the memory I remember now that I had a piece of fleece at home that Nathan had been lying on.

I could not express next to him. No space in NICU and I was far to fixed on the machines anyway I would have dried up

Jam, just to say, my little man fed for the first few hours, then fell ill and was unconscious for a week. I got to grip with expressing (double pumping - my body still thinks I have twins) and at six months we are still breastfeeding. Actually i go more support in SCBU than any of my mates with healthy babies did and I was the only one without sore/cracked nipples and mastitis.

Jam, I am so sorry to have missed this yesterday. Your poor sister sounds as though she has had a hell of a time. How is she feeling? My first birth was very rough and really took it out of me - can you take her some nice food and perhaps some nice smellies for her tom? That way, she can at least have something decent to eat and a good shower. I am afraid I don't know much about NICU but I expect that as much skin to skin as possible can only e a good thing.

Don't worry about the forcep marks - DD1 had these and they looked vicious, but faded quickly. Forceps cradle the head rather than grip it, but still leave marks on delicate skin for a couple of days.

Best wishes to your sister and her new DD. Does DD have a name yet?

Jam it's wonderful that she has held the baby. Does she have a name yet?

As you know M was stuck for a long time and they tried to pull her out/rotate her etc. She wasn't separated from me and I tried bfing from the very beginning. DD didn't latch on for 24hrs. She had a bad headache, was exhausted and probably a bit confused. Just to reassure your dsis that it's not the separation that's causing the lack of interest, it's probably the effects of the birth. It took 5 days for my milk to come in and dd survived just fine until then with the little colostrum she took.

I know you're a lovely, kind, supportive person so your dsis will be well cared for. I wish her the best and hope she looks after herself very well indeed. Make sure she asks all the questions she needs to while they're fresh in her mind. It will help her put the birth behind her as she gets to know her little baby.

It's SOH btw!

Glad to hear she's held her baby.

My second was in NICU for a week and i couldn't hold him for the first couple of days as his breathing was too bad and he needed to be in an incubator getting lots of oxygen.

I hand expressed to begin with then when my milk came in used the hospital grade machines. I fully expressed for 5 days and then switched to fully bf so by the time he left hospital at 8 days i'd stopped expressing.

He's now nearly 8 months and i've exclusively breastfed.

Hope all goes well.

Hope everything goes well and your dsis manages to bf.

Congratulations .

Thanks all the baby has been called Megan.

SOH love the new name.

Jam, tell her not to give up on the bf; at the beginning it is sometimes better to hand-express as pumps are not very good for getting cholesterol out. On day 3 or so, the "proper" milk comes in and it is much easier to express and also for baby to get the milk. It is also better if possible for baby to be cup-fed if she is not being tube-fed, as bottles can lead to the baby not learning to latch properly.
But my ds3 was born at 32 weeks, was not put to the breast for a week but still managed to latch on fine in the end and I bf him till he was 2.8!

Jam: no experience but wanted to let you know I'm thinking of you and your sister . Did you get to see her yesterday?