Hi,

I wrote a few weeks back (3-4) about a new baby whose mom had had a
breast reduction who had lost a fair amount of weight, was only taking
finger feeding, was not gaining well, and the mom had been told to not
bf (just pump) until the weight was up.  He was born 7 lbs 6 oz, went
down to 6 lbs 10 oz (lowest weight) before climbing up VERY slowly to
begin with.

Someone had suggested to "feed him up quick & dirty on bottles, then
bf".  ;-)  Finally, this is what happened.  He has gained a lot and is
now close to 9 lbs, doing very well, very vocal if not being fed as much
as he wants, etc.  They used Avent bottles and fed him up and made sure
he was stronger, then put him back to the breast (with lact-aid or SNS
in tow) and he is nursing much better and more nowadays.  I gather they
are still giving 1 bottle a day.  The mom would like to eliminate this,
but the father had gotten used to getting his share of feeding time
(finger-feeding) while mom pumped to begin with, and doesn't want to
give it up.  So they're working on "weaning dad off the bottles"...LOL.

At one point she was very negative, thinking they wouldn't get him back
to the breast...she said she was only able to get him latched with the
lact-aid or sns with the LC's help, and she only had an appt. once a
day.  She said she could see how he'd lost SO much ground (i.e. in
learning) just by not nursing for that 24 hour period between one
latching and another.

She is of the opinion that had they given a bottle to begin with, rather
than fiddling with the long tedious finger feeding that took a lot of
energy on baby's and their parts, they might have gotten his weight back
up much faster and might have gotten him back to the breast sooner.  One
will never know, and hindsight is 20/20 but the best laid plans of mice
and men (she'd been reading about BF after reductiion for MONTHS before
delivery!)...but that is what she thought.

Anyhow, I would like to thank everyone for their input on this
situation, which I communicated to the mom and she also saw a LC at a
clinic a few times to get things going.  I'm glad to announce that
things are going MUCH better at least now.

Fio.

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