Hello Karen!


I am writing this as a mother of a former diabetic baby and breastfeeding 
counsellor.

Do you think that here can be two different reasons in this? Many 7 months 
old can be a little tricky breastfeeders, it is quite common for babies at 
this age to have nursing strikes - especially if they eat a lot of solids 
and mothers try not to breastfed at nights. Also some bigger babies tend to 
react by nursing strikes to fysical discomfort more easily, for example sore 
throat etc. This baby had physical discomfort before diagnose. Then there 
are things around diabetes treatment. If a child get diabetes there are many 
new things in baby´s life and a lot of talking and fuss around eating.  The 
mother and baby are probably at the hospital and babies tend to react stress 
and different surroundings around them.

What I would suggest that you talk casually with the mom and try to figure 
out what kind of nursing relationship they had before. Then you could 
evaluate more easily what things led to this strike if there are more 
reasons.

If everything were "normal" before last weeks, I think there are good chance 
that this baby goes back to the breast. when things get less stressful. My 
daughter has other health issues also and every time at the hospital is 
difficult and some days at home also after coming home. She is angry and 
difficult, but in our case breastfeeding was the only good thing after it 
started to work well. I warmly recommend breastfeeding for diabetic babies 
and toddlers, it makes things easier and comforts mother and the baby. Not 
to mention health issues!

My daughter has had type 1 diabetes since birth. She has had insulinpump 
from the beginning (after NICU) and I nursed her JUST like I would do 
otherwise. She had problems learning breastfeeding after a long 
hospitalization and after many bottles and we had a feeding tube at home the 
first months. But still I tried to do things as usual as possible: she could 
go to the breast as often as she wished and we adjusted insulintherapy to 
her life. She was just like normal baby and she breastfed quite often, so at 
first we used mainly basal insulinrate, no mealtime boluses. When she got 
bigger and ate bigger amounts of milk, we started to give small insulin 
doses during breastfeeds and when she started solids, I started to count 
carbohydrates from the solids and we gave meal insulin boluses. She had and 
has direct acting insulin in the pump so we can give mealtime insulin 
boluses after feeds. She breastfed until almost 3 years. Later years I did 
not give insulin for breastfeeds as weaning progressed and breastmilk doses 
were small. She did fine :-) Of course it was difficult time until we 
figured it out but it was worth it. She is 10 years old now and uses her 
pump quite well!

Checking blood sugar: it is common to advice patiens to check sugar 0,5 hour 
before meal. With breastfeeding babies I think it is quite impossible! How 
the mother could know in advance when baby will ask to nurse? Sugar check is 
quick, I just did it right before breastfeedings. With nursing strike I 
maybe would try to do them a little (or more) time before breastfeeding 
attemps. The baby and parents  will get used to checking sugar values (since 
they dont have a choice), my daughter did and does not wake up for the 
checks every time.

I hope everything will get better in time.

Best wishes,
Pia Ruohotie, RN and breastfeeding counsellor
From Helsinki, Finland, Europe 

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