Another risk associated with gastric suctioning is a little more subtle...
and it has happened to a couple of babies I know well, including my own
grandson.  If the contents of the stomach are suctioned at birth, the baby
has little fluid to pass through his bladder and kidneys for a couple of
days... so the neonatologist who is looking for satisfactory
bladder/kidney function via wet diapers may have to wait awhile to see
them.  And, of course, the neonatologist won't discharge the baby without
seeing some pee so then he'll want to supplement with formula... to
correct a problem that the staff created when they suctioned all the
baby's stomach contents the day before.

In my grandson's case, the doc told my daughter, "He obviously isn't
getting enough fluid with just colostrum to cause him to urinate.  If he
hasn't peed by 6 PM today, we'll give him some formula.  If he pees after
that, I'll discharge him."

My daughter freaked out... she didn't want any formula being given to her
baby!  My son-in-law called the doc back in and said, "Listen... this baby
isn't going to be getting any formula.  We'll stay here until next week if
it takes that long for him to pee enough to satisfy you, but God didn't
make that kind of mistake, OK?  This baby won't be getting any formula...
period."  ::sigh::  My hero.  ;)

About an hour later, I had to leave to take my son to karate lessons, but
my son in law called me a few minutes later and said, "Hey, this baby boy
is showing us that he will do what he wants and always in his own time...
he just peed a freakin' fountain... we're packing up to go home!"  ;)

Cee

On Thu, 7 Apr 2005, Denise Fisher wrote:

> I did some research on this not too long ago and this is what I wrote as
> a result: " Routine gastric suctioning, involving the passage of a tube
> into the neonate's stomach and aspiration of the contents has been
> linked to an increased prevalence of functional intestinal disorders in
> later life (Anand, 2004). Widstrom (1987) noted that gastric suctioning
> delayed the infant's prefeeding behaviors.

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