Itai was born at 36 weeks in an emergency c-section with my daughter
Maya under general anesthesia one week ago.  He weighed 2k880g and he
has a receding chin. Due to the fact that he was near term, he had to be
under the warmer, and had to be monitored for at least 6 hours.  He is
fully breastfeeding, lost less than 5% birth weight, and is a very calm,
happy baby who smiles all the time.  My daughter was never engorged,
only full , had slightly sensitive nipples in the second day, and never
experienced that terrible second night that causes most moms to break.
Why did this potentially difficult situation have so few breastfeeding
problems?
1.	Maya says that having a lactation consultant mother available to
her 24/7 really helped.  ( I took a room in a little hotel adjacent to
the hospital, and was on call if they needed help that first night,
which they really did not.)  
2.	Itai was not bathed in the first 3 days, and was never in one of
those plastic baby boxes.  He was put directly into his dad's arms after
the birth, and Kfir sat with him all night, kangarooing him, under the
griller. Grilling is the protocol for near term babies. ( usually they
are in the plastic box by themselves)  When he started rooting, Kfir let
him suck on his finger, and I ran to the recovery room to get some
colostrum to satisfy the staff that his sugar would not drop. Once Maya
came back to her room, he was either in her arms, or Kfir's as much as
they could, and only rarely was put into the little box.  He was never
in the nursery, except to be checked to go home and then always with his
parents presence.  
3.	Of course he never got anything other than his mommy's breast,
which , luckily was full of colostrum and milk in spite of the CS.  
4.	Only his parents cared for him, changing diapers and bathing him
on day 3.  He was only touched by doctors, and I chose the most gentle
docs. 
 
What have I learned?
1. Being a grandmother is the most wonderful feeling there is, but with
all my experience and knowledge, getting there was fraught with lots of
anxiety.  
2. Most mothers don't have a chance to really breastfeed.  Every
protocol in our hospital ends with artificial milk as the solution for
the problem ( I am sure that this was carefully designed as such by
beings whose first loyalty is to an industry which keeps many people
financially happy).  I had to fight to keep it away from him ( low
glucose, i.e. low by their standards....in our hospital, a baby has to
have a glucose of above 45 in the first 3 hours, and above 50 after
that.  I have still not been given the evidence I requested that backs
this up. It is probably in the Similac manual.)
3. Mothers after C-section really need constant help in those first 3
days.  We were lucky that Kfir could stay with her, but that was only
because I work in this hospital.  Most moms are on their own at night.
I don't know how they manage.  
4. Full rooming in is the only way to go.  Nils Bergman was right: NEVER
SEPARATE MOTHERS AND BABIES. 
5. Our daughters are really lucky to have us around when they give
birth.  We should give special courses to grandmas to be to be able to
help their daughters in those first 3 days.  
6. Sometimes we have to step back and let our kids make mistakes early
in parenthood.  So my grandson had a chilly first bath because his
parents were trusting the thermometer instead of their elbow.   I tried
to tell them, but they have to learn themselves. 
 
 
 
Esther Grunis, IBCLC
Lis Maternity Hospital
Tel Aviv, Israel
 

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

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 email list is powered by LISTSERV (R).
There is only one LISTSERV. To learn more, visit:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html