Like Kirsten, I am also relatively new to Lactnet, which
I am finding very interesting. I am a lecturer at the
Otago Polytechnic Departmentl of Nursing and
Midwifery in Dunedin, New Zealand, and also a long
term neonatal intensive care nurse. While not an LC, I
am committed to breast feeding for all babies, and
particularly recognise the advantages for the preterm
baby and family. I was most interested to hear that
some areas are successfully BF quite small babies
after discharge (Kirsten cites 4 pounds, 34 weeks, I
think). We, too, find that babies of this age and size
will often do really well on a three hourly feeding
regime, but often they are just not awake enough to
manage all these feeds by themselves, or to demand
feed successfully. We still find that we need to give a
fair number of tube feeds (we won't bottle feed a baby
that is learning to breast feed). However, we are
starting to look more into the early discharge of such
babies, and I would really welcome your comments or
any references regarding the successful BF
management of such small babies at home. I would
love to receive any copies of your policies/protocols,
and to generate some discussion on lact-net.

Sincerely,

Sarah Gamble