Hello Jacqulyn,

Five days after the unmedicated home birth of our third daughter I got a 
really high fever. After two weeks with a fever of 40-41 degrees Celsius 
(use Linda's site to convert this to Fahrenheit... haha) I was brought to 
the hospital. I did not go sooner, because I feared my little girl and I 
would be separated and she would be bottle fed. Once admitted, I got a broad 
spectrum antibiotic, that topped of the symptoms. Because of that, they 
couldn't find anything, so after five or six days I was dismissed. Back 
home, I sank deep again, almost immediately: reduced consciousness, not 
eating, not drinking, just putting an arm around my baby and trying to keep 
her comfortable at breast, although I wasn't able to really look after her. 
When my husband got home that evening, he saw us and rushed us off to the 
hospital again. At the ER, they tried to find out what was wrong with me and 
although they couldn't find anything, it was very obvious that I was 
severely dehydrated: fully feeding, sweating because of the extremely hot 
Summer and hardly drinking. They gave me an IV and my husband sort of saved 
my life, because he suggested different diagnostics than they were using 
until then. In those days, he was working for Organon and he knew that his 
colleague had just delivered new diagnostica to that hospital and suggested 
they would use those for me. They did and found out I had puerperal fever, a 
group-A streptococ, that was dangerous, but could be treated with 
traditional penicilline through an IV. For one and a half or two days, I was 
so sick that my sweet girl was taken to the neonatal ward. After that time, 
she came back and I started feeding her around the clock, relactating in 
fact, because there was hardly any milk left. I spent two weeks on the IV in 
the hospital, in a room for just me and with her next to me. The first few 
days, I got four litres of water in my IV and still hardly urinated, so the 
situation had been really life threatening. I was so happy to have Hannelore 
with me again and she and I were almost constantly together, she in my arms, 
on my tommy, her head between my breasts or feeding. Nurses sometime 
slightly opened the door and thinking I was asleep, they said: "Look, she is 
feeding all the time; they are like this, together, hours in a row!" That 
caused a full production in only one or two days; I knew what to do: I had 
successfully breastfed the elder two.
It was then, that I found out how much women 'borrowed' their babies from 
the nurses and would only feed when it was time or when they got 
'permission'. That hospital experience is in fact the start of my career as 
a breastfeeding peer counsellor and (hopefully) IBCLC after this Summer's 
exam.

Reading your story, I would guess this mom could do the same, considering 
her condition. Puerperal fever is also a blood poisoning, so it should be 
possible. Let the doctors make sure she gets compatible medication; maybe 
Thomas Hale can shed some light on it...? Good luck!

Warmly,

Marianne Vanderveen, Netherlands

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Jacqulyn Lerch RN,BSN,IBCLC,CCCE" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, April 25, 2008 8:36 PM
Subject: [LACTNET] Is mom too sick to nurse?


Hello! I have been unsuccessfully trying to find information for client of 
mine.
She had a baby 4 mos ago and is currently hospitalized with pylonephritis
(kidney infection). She has been on antibiotics for a couple of days that
apparently were not working as they now have her on a new med (levoquin).
She also has now been diagnosed with sepsis!
(snip) Please respond if you have encountered this
before and can help me to guide our girl in the right direction. Thanks. 
Jackie

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