Getting the baby to the breast before giving him a bottle is one of the
latest initiatives in our unit. Luckily we have one particular neo who has
become rather adamant about this. We weigh ALL of our babies every day. The
babies are weighed on one of the electronic scales (or on a bed scale if
they are on a vent or something that makes moving them difficult) - which
are on wheels and can be rolled anywhere in the unit. We aren't doing test
weights - instead when the baby is first starting out - we put the baby to
the breast and then after the session - ie when baby falls asleep or when it
is very apparent that he is no longer interested we gavage a feeding of
pumped breast milk via NG tube. As the baby becomes more proficient we
reduce the amount of milk gavaged and as long as he continues to gain weight
we continue on this path. We are not doing this with every baby and the rest
of our neos and NNP's are still very uncomfortable with this concept as they
cannot "see how much the baby is getting". We could do test weights though
and it wouldnt be any big deal.

When we write new best practices, this one will be a biggie!


Michelle Meeks, RN

             ***********************************************

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(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html