I would like your opinions about some concerns I have over my grandchild.
Briefly, DIL Eliz, who is now 37, had breast reduction surgery when she was 18. She had the inferior pedicle surgery, the *best* kind, and it seems that the nerves and ducts have had sufficient time to recanalize. She drips milk whenever she lets down, and is able to pump 2oz AFTER nursing in 10 mins.
We anticipated that any problems would be with her supply, but that is not the case. It is the baby!
The baby was induced because, according to the radiologist,an ultrasound indicated that he was over 10# and that the level of amniotic fluid was low. An elective C-section was recommended, but she chose to try induction first as she was 40weeks + 4 days pregnant.
The birthing center where she had originally planned to birth sent her to the local hospital. When she arrived they determined that she was actually already in labour, 3cm dilated. They put her on a pit drip to augment the labour, but ater 7 hours she had not progressed at all so they used a suppository to help efface her cervix. Then she went back on the pit drip. After 3 hours of pushing it the baby was still at stage 1, his head resting on the bones leading to the birth canal. His heart rate was down to ~80, and she consented to a C-section. During the surgery the doc had to disengage his head forn the pubic bone opening, and he had a bip lump there for about two days. The baby was delivered at 3:45am on July 5th, with an apgar score or 9 and 10. We put the excellent scores down to fact that she had NO meds during labour except for the pitocin. BTW, the baby weighed 8#14 at birth and there was plenty of amniotic fluid!
He nursed beautifully in the recovery room,, zooming in on her breasts like a homing pigeon, lips perfectly flanged at 180 degrees, and then had an enormous merconium poop. Eliz kept the baby with her at all times and he continued to nurse frequently and well, with lots of pees and one poop a day for the first three days. Her milk started changing colour on the second day after birth, and she started to feel full. The baby was a little fussy that night and the nurses wanted to take him down to the nursery and/or give him a bottle of formula because his temp went up to 100, even though he showed no signs of dehydration. DS Dan and Eliz sponged him down and Dan dripped water from his finger into the baby's mouth, and an hour later his temp was back to 98. The nursery nurse smuggled a feeding cup into them because none of the nurses had been trained in cup-feeding or any other alternate feeding method except bottles.
The next morning, Eliz announced that she was ready to leave the hospital. Her doc said she was fine, and the baby's doc ordered a PKU test, a hearing test and an ultrasound because they suspected hip dysplasia. Dan took his son down for the ultrasound to find that they had been *double-booked* and they were consequently away from Eliz for over an hour. After nursing, Dan took him down for the hearing test while Eliz was interviewed by the social worker (standard practice). 30 mins later Dan called the room to say that the baby was inconsolable. (The hearing specialist offered a bottle of sugar water which Dan refused.) So we whisked Eliz in a wheelchair to the baby, and she nursed through the PKU test. He was weighed - weight down to 8#, but the hospital LC reassured her that most of that loss was the extra IV fluids. Then the orthopedic doc came to tell us the baby had severe hip dysplasia, and he was fitted with a harness. THEN we came home!
That night every one slept well - we were all exhausted! Baby woke every couple of hours to nurse, but Eliz and Dan felt more rested. In the morning her milk was definately *in* - but that was when the trouble started. Since then, the baby will go willingly and eagerly to breast, latch beautifully, nurse vigorously for a few minutes and then flutter suck. Between times he is either sleeping and quietly alert. We have not seen ANY poopy diapers since then. He is getting 4-5 very wet ones every 24 hours. Eliz has been doing breast compression and switching sides whenever her slows down. Yesterday I rented a Medela Lactina. She pumped 2 oz in 10 mins, AFTER he nursed, and her took 1 oz of that by cup. She is going to pump during the day after each feeding and use the lactaid whenever nursing slows down.
Eliz just returned from the birthing center, where they took out her staples. They weighed the baby and he is up to 8#8oz! That is a gain of 8oz in four days! So WHY ISN'T HE POOPING?
Am I over-reacting? Am I just an over-anxious grandma? Any ideas?
Norma Ritter
[log in to unmask]
--
__________________________________________________________
Sign-up for your own FREE Personalized E-mail at Mail.com
http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup
CareerBuilder.com has over 400,000 jobs. Be smarter about your job search
http://corp.mail.com/careers
***********************************************
To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html
|
