Greetings,
        Am fairly new to Lactnet and have been enjoying/learning alot
from the interchanges. As a L&D nurse as well as the hospital's Lactation
Specialist, I've enjoyed the comments about baby's 1st bath. I tend to
delay it as long as possible, encourage the Dad to do it, and only give
a gentle sponge bath (the vernix is not washed out of the baby's creases).
        Our hospital is rather small, but BFing rate is 70% so I stay pretty
busy; try to see all moms who are nursing for 1st time, had previous problems
or are having problems with current breastfeeding experience. Also do staff
training and am currently preparing a CME (continuing medical education)
conference for the physicians(to be given during 1st week in August--is
that advantagous or what?)
        Ok, here's the situation: Mom has a 6 month old who has been doing
fine until they started trying solids a few weeks ago. Only gave baby about
1 Tbsp each day (rice cereal or pears) but baby's stooling pattern went
from 1/day to nothing for 5-6 days, with stool very hard and difficult to
pass (mom had to resort to enema to give baby relief). This has occured
twice now; each time, mom has stopped the cereal or fruit by day 3 and
baby still had no stool by day 5 or 6. My immediate thought was that baby
just isn't ready for solids yet and that's fine with mom, she just thought
it was time to start solid foods. When taking her history I became concerned
that her diet could be contributing factor but have been unable to find
anything in my resouce library. Mom is vegetarian, eats no red meat, chicken,
fish, milk; on very rare occasions has eggs or tuna, does eat cheese. She
does not sound very knowlegeable about importance of complementary and
replacement protein. Other vegan moms I've worked with were very well
educated about nutrition; I suggested she obtain some vegetarian cookbooks
or other literature to help assure she has adequate nutrition for both her
and baby. Is there something here that I'm missing? Mom says she's taking
no meds and baby is gaining well, alert and happy except when constipation
occurs. Thanks for any ideas anyone can throw out for me.  Mary Anne B.