Hi Anne
You must have been very excited to see this baby breastfeed - that's
fabulous and I hope everything continues really well.

I don't mean to rain on your parade, but I was 'involved' with a baby with
the same deformities and it taught me a lesson I'll never forget.  This
baby I was caring for (along with quite a few others...) did appear to be
latching and suckling well, so that was what we continued. You don't expect
to see too much swallowing in the first day or two anyway so that didn't
really worry me (plus I wasn't really very experienced at that time).
Anyway to cut a long story short - the baby got very jaundiced (what Dr
Jack would term 'not-enough-breastmilk jaundice') and lost considerable
weight. The paeds hit the roof and the baby ended up being bottle fed formula.

What did I learn? Don't believe that a cleft baby is really getting plenty
of milk unless you are totally convinced about the swallowing, and
preferably seeing the wet and dirty nappies - don't trust 'em.  Yes, by all
means offer the breast every feed and use breast compression with each feed
(plus all the other cleft tricks), but express after each feed and offer
the milk in a cup.  Certainly I would recommend doing this until the mother
has a copious milk supply, then maybe see how the baby goes.

Breastmilk, however this baby gets it, is especially important to babies
with clefts in preventing ear and URT infections -

All the best
Denise
****************************************************
Denise Fisher, BN, RM, IBCLC
BreastEd Online Lactation Studies Course
http://www.breasted.com.au
mailto:[log in to unmask]
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