>     Another mother, whose baby has had the first of 3 open-heart surgeries,
> has been told that she must pump and bottle feed so the doctor can know how
> much he is getting. He is only about 1/2 pound over birthweight at 6 weeks of
> age. He doesn't like to bottle feed. His mother can see that bottle feeding
> is hard on him. So she "sneaks" (her word exactly) him onto the breast after
> he bottle feeds. Do you all  you think that this boy is loosing calories by
> bottle feeding that he could conserve at the breast?

I've run into this same problem being a LLLL.  What do you say when
you are at playgroup and a mom starts talking about the problems she
is having? She knows you are an L, but she hasn't come to you for
assistance.

You could always approach it by asking the mother, "Have you talked
to your doctor about the difficulties you are having in feeding your
son?"  Whatever the answer, you can always go on to say, "What do you
think his reaction would be to you using an SNS so you can get the
"measurements" that he wants but at the same time allow your baby to
be comforted by the breast?"

It isn't uncommon for babies with heart problems to have low weight
gain.  And surgery isn't easy on babies (much less adults) Look at
how much weight adults loose after surgery.  No surprise that the
baby is barely over birth weight.

If the mother isn't open to using an SNS (for presumably EBM?) you
could ask her if her doctor would be open to more frequent (weekly)
weight checks instead of measuring ounces of consumption.  Which I
personally find absurd.  What do you do with the baby that spits up?
How do you measure that feed?


Michelle Leifur Reid
LLL Leader
Pensacola, FL
http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Meadows/4804

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