"'Breast is best' bias blamed for hundreds of dehydrated babies"

[beef]

let battle commence!

I'm saying nowt!

munz, what is the rugby hold?

When ds1 was born I was left to just get on with it even though I was still on the postnatal ward. I lost count of the number of times I told different MWs that ds1 wouldn't feed at all. Each time I was told that no baby would let itself starve etc. On the4th day a MW finally looked properly at ds1 after I'd practically begged her too. She tried to get ds1 to take some formula while waiting for the on-call Paed to arrived but ds1 wouldn't take it and was taken off to SCBU. The SCBU staff were so shocked that ds1 had deteriorated to such an extent that they refused to allow him to go back on to the ward even when he was better (after 4 days of being tube-fed with EBM). Thankfully there was a lot more support available with ds2 and dd, who were born in a different hospital.

If you can't get proper support while still in the hospital then what hope is there once you leave?

i agree with alot of the posts on here. in hot weather it is advisable to feed more often but if parents are worried about the heat then drinks of water occasionally wont do any harm. if baby wont take a bottle then cups or even syringes can be used. my ds is very distractable at feeding at the moment and if im out with him he sometimes wont feed so i give him a little water to keep his fluid levels up. he normally makes up for the missed feeds during the night. my supply is still as good as ever.

Maybe the lack of support given to new mums might encourage hospitals seeking the unicef award to employ breastfeeding counsellors.

I'm actually appalled some of you think a few hundred babies is nothing much. From the article "Experts estimate that most hospitals see at least one baby a week re-admitted for rehydration due to failed breastfeeding. Nationally, that could mean 250 infants a week need hospital care." I don't know any more than you do what experts and how it was calculated, but the numbers are pretty high and worrying, if true. I agree about poor support given to mums BTW.

I offered water in hot weather, too. Never affected my milk supply or the baby's feeding.

TT - basically instead of being across my body joey was under my arm (his body) much better for us both.

I also offer water as well, not that it's always taken!

One step forward ten steps back. This article will of course be sucked up and quoted word for word by anyone who out to get the breatsfeeding -mafia. Printed in the Telegraph and the Daily Mail I see.

dd became jaundiced in hospital on day 2. no one instructed me how often i should even attempt to feed dd especially since lights were going to dehydrate her. being completely ignorant about these things, i would let dd scream under the lights in the misguided belief that the lights were more important than bf her. eventually, i started to take her out and just feed her - i put my poor little dd thru hell because no one stopped to tell me that feeding her was more important than the bloody lights.

if you can't get decent bf advice when in hospital, we are royally screwed.

Message withdrawn

FM - really, in those two particular publications was it? How very surprising..... They must love that GP...Going to see mum and dad on Wednesday (loyal DT readers) and mum'll probably brandish it as yes another reason why I should stop bfing DS#2. 'But mum, he's 3 and drinks like a fish'...'Doesn't make any difference darling, the Telegraph says he'll get dehydrated...'

not going to comment.

I can see the brains in the marketing dep, of various formula companies twitching. All those hot developing countries. Imagine all those dehydrtaed babies, eh? Milupa to the rescue!

tut tut, beef.....

I was just about to post EXACTLY what Soupdragon said

My mum rang me yesterday panicking having read this (knowing I am planning to bf) - and I haven't even had my baby yet! I didn't have a clue what to say to her except that I would have to take the advice given in hospital, though it sounds like it varies depending on the person giving the advice. What should I do if it's really hot and I'm having problems bfing in the initial days and midwives/docs etc are warning about jaundice... is water better to give than formula? As well as trying to sort out latch or whatever the problem might be, I mean.

"From the article "Experts estimate that most hospitals see at least one baby a week re-admitted for rehydration due to failed breastfeeding. Nationally, that could mean 250 infants a week need hospital care." I don't know any more than you do what experts and how it was calculated, but the numbers are pretty high and worrying,"

But how many babies are born per week? How many don't have problems? Without knowing that, it's impossible to comment whether this is a high number or not. If ony 10 babiies are born per week, that's a hell of a lot having problems. If it's 10000, it's not so many.

then again Soupy - if this is breastfed babies they're talking about - it still sounds alarming - as a lot of mothers DON'T breastfeed their babies so presumably wouldn't be included in the numbers being admitted for dehydration due to not getting enough milk..........

I think the most important thing is to get good advice from a breast feeding counsellor 2labs. If you don't get this in hospital, be aware that the NCT (and probably other organisations - la leche?) give advice for free regardless of whether you have had any contact with them before birth (e.g. ante natal classes). I found that NCT had people able to talk to me at pretty much any time.

I don't see why you can't give the NCT breastfeeding support line a call now if you are worried.

An awful lot of mothers who don't breastfeed do actually try for a week or so and give up for one reason or another though.

Anyway, this article is badly written and ill informed. It's the fact that mothers do not get enough breastfeeding support that is causing this, not that breastfeeding is causing dehydration. You don't need to top a breastfed baby up with formula to prevent dehydration, that's quite frankly ridiculous. You do need to ensure breastfeeding is established properly and you do need to ensure mothers know to feed their baby on demand and that it will demand more frequently in this weather. There's no need to give them formula at all. Obviously formula is great where there is a genuine problem that can't be solved quick enough to prevent dehydration but it really shouldn't be necessariy in the large majority of cases. Barring maternal choice obviously.

I agree that absolute numbers don't tell the whole story but imagine if the storyline went "250 formula-fed babies a week need to be admitted to hospital".

kiskidee, the exact same thing happened to me and ds.

I'm not sure what difference adding "formula fed" in to that statement makes???

funny I had 'help' from NCT and La Leche (sp) and a really fabulous midwife while I was still in hospital with DS2 - plus my own experience from BFeeding DS1 for 14 months.........but if I'd been stubborn and listened to a lot of the bias around me DS2 could have been on of those in hopsital - it was 5 days before he got his first 'proper' drink (formula). We tried every position under the sun (and a few under the moon I expect too LOL) and he was getting nothing - and I was getting very painful boobs.

Equally there were 5 other women in my ward when I was BF'eeding him (well trying to) in hospital and I was the only one that didn't have a bottle in my hand.......

It is still fairly meaningless given we don't know the number of babies not involved and it would not mean that formula feeding is wrong but that the advice given is wrong. No different to "breast fed infants".