According to our protocol, the baby must eat 6 hours after birth if he did
not nurse in the delivery room and 8 hours if he did. If he does not eat at
6 hours, we check for hypoglycemia. Hand expressing drops of colostrum and
giving it to the baby is considered a feed at that point. Unfortunately,
many of our nurses (even some LCs) will insist on a feed at 6 hours at any
cost and really pressure the mothers to feed their babies who are fast
asleep and have no interest what so ever in eating - even giving some
formula. My method is to put the baby and mom skin to skin at that point
(if not before) and perhaps have her express some colostrum on to a finger
and have her baby suck it off. If the baby wakes up but doesn't latch, I'll
help her express into a spoon and give that to him. It feels counter
intuitive to try to force a non hungry other wise healthy, term baby to eat
and certainly to insists on giving formula if the nurse does not have time
to help express milk and the mother doesn't manage.
Also, the mother does not always feel ready at 6 hours to nurse. If we tell
her that her baby must eat now, she'll end up asking us to give formula. I
would be thrilled if we could wait 12 hours. Do you have any research that
I could look at ?
Thanks so much,
Chayn



On Tue, Jul 24, 2018 at 4:19 PM, SUBSCRIBE LACTNET Jacalyn <
[log in to unmask]> wrote:

> Our policy  we need to intervene at 12hrs of no feeding, no latching.   By
> intervene, it means, assess for hypoglycemia and hypotonia if no sucking.
> We usually do a blood sugar, and hand expression.
>  Initially after birth and during first few hours we do skin to skin and
> try some hand expression even if baby will lick at colostrum, spoon or even
> mom put some on her finger and see if the baby will suck.
>
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