My baby girl born term and healthy 7lb 8oz. Unfortunately I had a PPH and was very anaemic post natal despite ferinject infusion . My intention and desire was to ebf.
On each visit from midwife once home, baby kept losing weight despite feeding on demand.
Once her weight loss has reached a certain % we were put on a management plan. The infant support worker then became involved. She spent hours with me giving me advice and support, observing bf and giving me guidance as to how to optimise bf. Providing baby was medically well, despite the weight loss, I was really keen not to introduce formula or bottles. I was supported in this by my infant feeding support worker who encouraged me to express and to top up via a syringe.
Baby continued to lose weight and lost more than 12% of her birth weight. At this point we were made to go to hospital to have her checked over and bloods taken. This was horrendous. The paeds ward offered no support on how to get her to gain weight and we were effectively left for 6hrs after she’d been clerked in without seeing any health professional. It was incredibly stressful, I was 7 days post natal, emotional, surrounded by 3 other children with D&V, no comfortable chairs to bf or express and hanging around for hours on end waiting for simple blood results. For a few weeks we had to give formula top ups via bottle as instructed by the paediatrician. But we’ve successfully weaned baby off and are now 3 months into a wonderful breast feeding journey.
The support from infant feeding has been invaluable.
"Breastfeeding and infant weight loss"
About: County Community Hospital / Maternity care County Community Hospital Maternity care IV18 0JR County Community Hospital / Paediatrics County Community Hospital Paediatrics Invergordon IV18 0JR
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