I just got back from the hospital visiting a friend of mine.  She had a
section on friday for mono amniotic twins, at 35 weeks.  The twins are
now 2 days old and of very good size, the smaller is 5 lb 10 oz (at
birth, I'm sure he's down some) and the larger is 6 lb 8 oz, which is
huge.  Mom was on constant monitoring for the last 7 weeks.  I didn't
get to see the larger twin, who was in the nicu due to blood oxygen
level, but the smaller one was just in special care.  He seemed fine to
me, was not on oxygen anymore, still had a iv and the mom wasn't sure
why.  There was a pacifier in with the baby and a bottle of formula on
the counter next to the baby.  I asked the nurse if he had taken any of
the formula and she said no.  They are trying to get the mom to stop
breast feeding "these ivs can come out faster if we can measure what
goes in, you can breastfeed when you get home."  She has three older
children, all breastfed a minimum of one year, so she knows better but
it seems like the hospital is really messing with breastfeeding here.  I
was only there as a friend (and actually was not supposed to be seeing
the baby at all as I am not family) so I was very limited in what I
could do or say.  I did remind mom that at two days, especially with the
iv, it's OK if the baby doesn't drink formula and that the pacifiers may
be messing with the baby's need to suck. Oh, and the mom is only going
to nurse every 3 hours....   I'm afraid that there will be so much to
fix once she gets home.  She's not the die hard lactavist I am,  gives
pacifiers to her kids (her almost 2 year old still uses his pacifier
constantly, and he's no longer nursing so probably he needs the sucking
comfort.).  I gently suggested that perhaps she needs to be more
forceful about the no artifical nipples thing and suggested finger
feeding, but we'll see if she does that.  It looks like the smaller twin
may be able to go home with her on Tuesday, but not the larger one.  Oh,
and once the babies are in special care nursery, they can't come out to
room in with mom, they can only come out to be released from the
hospital? I don't get that at all!

Joylyn

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