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Breastfeeding and infant weight loss

Posted By Dz

"Breastfeeding and infant weight loss"

About: County Community Hospital / Maternity care County Community Hospital / Paediatrics

(as a parent/guardian),

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.

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Responses

Response from Karen MacKay, Senior Health Improvement Specialist (Infant Feeding Advisor), RM, IBCLC, NHS Highland 4 years ago
We are preparing to make a change
Karen MacKay
Senior Health Improvement Specialist (Infant Feeding Advisor), RM, IBCLC,
NHS Highland

Submitted on 08/05/2019 at 16:20
Published on Care Opinion at 16:21

Hi Dz,

many thanks for taking the time to tell us your story and I am sorry to read you had such a hard start after the birth of your baby girl. I am delighted that you felt so supported by the infant feeding support worker and it is great to read how much time they had invested to support you in your chosen method of feeding. You must also be congratulated for achieving exclusive breastfeeding after such a hard start. I will pass on your story to our infant feeding support worker as she will be delighted to learn how you felt her service was invaluable.

I am so sorry to read your experiences on the children's ward and I will pass these on to my colleagues there to ensure that learning can be made from reading your story and understanding the stress that you felt at that time. We are currently working with the children's ward to look at training staff in breastfeeding management, so this should also help.

I really appreciate you getting in touch as this story can hopefully lead to improved support for breastfeeding women in the future who may be admitted to the children's ward.

Karen Mackay

Senior health improvement specialist - infant feedign advisor

karen.mackay3@nhs.net

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Response from Karen MacKay, Senior Health Improvement Specialist (Infant Feeding Advisor), RM, IBCLC, NHS Highland 4 years ago
Karen MacKay
Senior Health Improvement Specialist (Infant Feeding Advisor), RM, IBCLC,
NHS Highland

Submitted on 20/05/2019 at 12:24
Published on Care Opinion at 15:21

Hi Dz,

I have discussed this with April Emmott, senior nurse for paediatrics, who is sorry you had this experience. The ward you described is an admission area as babies who are admitted to the children's ward are given a single cubicle with a feeding chair and bed for mum to sleep in. This is due to the higher infection risks associated with admitting young babies to our ward. Due to the nature of our assessment unit we triage cases here in the hope of supporting parents to return home without the need for admission and unfortunately tests can take some time to be carried out and reported on. I will inform my team of your experiences to ensure communication is tightened for parents in future. If you want to get in touch with me to discuss your story further my contact details are april.emmott@nhs.net

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