Permission to post.  Here is what the mother wrote


He weighed 6 lbs. 10 oz. The hospital discharge weight from Saturday and the weight you had him at Sunday was 6 lbs. 14 oz. So he's still losing weight, though the NP wasn't concerned. She also said the whites of his eyes were ever so slightly jaundiced, but that she didn't see other evidence of it, so hopefully we've cleared that hurdle. She also didn't see a problem with his tongue, and both Jordan and I have noticed him sticking his tongue out and it seemed more flat and extended than it had on Sunday. 

Baby slept (day 4 of life) for a long stretch between 5 pm and 8 pm. Then we've had some cluster feedings that have included a very small amount of formula, some pumped breast milk, and some time at the breast. The main problem with the time at the breast is that it seems that without the nipple shield, baby has a very, VERY short window before he gets too frustrated to really even try latching. At one feeding, we got some sucking action going for maybe 5-10 minutes, but he continually popped off the breast during that time. Then he reached a frustration point, I suppose, and he would root around and "peck" at my breast like a woodpecker, crying in frustration the whole time without latching once. Then at another feeding I put the shield on my left breast and got him on that one and he sucked for about 15 minutes continuously. 

Here is my frustration.  1) I know that the scale the pediatrician uses is pounds and tenths, not actual ounces.  So I don't know if the NP did the conversion or not.  If I assume she did then this baby lost 4 ounces in 2 days!!!  2) Baby has a slightly high arched palate and based on mom's description and my observation is pretty clearly tongue tied.  [parents have already said they will not see an ENT].  So my frustration is that this is yet another case of "it's ok to let babies starve."

I am fairly certain I can get this baby to feed at the breast comfortably, but this NP is not helping the situation.  If a baby is jaundiced up to the eyes that isn't ok. At least not in my book.  I don know the baby is stooling and mom is clear that feeding baby is priority one although if baby has really lost 4 ounces I'm not sure how she is interpreting "feed baby by any means necessary."

Sigh.

Thank you for "listening."  I needed to get some of this out before I respond to mom.

Lea Rivera Todaro
Brooklyn, NY.

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