Carrie
What an ordeal for this woman. It seems the autoimmune issues are not
causing direct problems except for the induction which led to early bf
difficulty. Immediately upon reading the first part of her story I thought
insufficient milk supply. It seems that is the crux of the problem. It seems
it was not asked or noticed whether her milk came in. My plan would have
been to have mother state her goals and then go for RPS, pumping with a
medela classic or ameda elite 8-10x, supplementation per mom's choice,
generally either slow flow bottle or tube supplementer at breast. I don't
see how thumb feeding is helpful in any way??? Why the Haberman??
It does not seem to me, by her report, that there are any suck issues with
the baby. I have seen unusual shaped breasts and areola, like described, and
baby just does not have the fullness of the breast to get a good latch on
to. This situation is difficult and one must be tactful yet honest, but I do
not recommend giving predictions such as "you'll never make enough milk" or
the like.
It sounds to me that mother should think about what *she* wants at this
point and go from there. I would be thinking regular bottle feeding (sounds
like mom figured that one out), continue the galactagogues (she may be going
overboard with the teas - not saying she should stop it if she wants it, but
does she ever just enjoy another beverage????), let the baby self-attach at
will, baby needs pleasurable breast experiences not battles. I definitely
feel the 9 oz is fabulous and definitely making a difference. Encourage mom
to believe in that. I think what adoptive moms do would be helpful for this
mother, and that she can totally bf at some point when baby's need is for
less volume of milk. This can happen if mother makes the committment to bf
long term. She can possibly maintain this level of milk production with less
than 8x pumping. By the way, I don't feel the Lactina works as well as the
other 2 I mentioned, so I would have preferred mother stay with the classic.
I have no experience with the Symphony but studies I've seen seem to show no
real advantage over the classic. I would offer a tube supplementer at breast
*for later* once baby is interested in latching. Bringing this in now would
be another battle, IMO.
Laurie Wheeler, IBCLC, MN, RN
Mississippi, s.e. USA
***********************************************
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(R)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html
|