Preemies
Options
Breastmilk with Neosure
So apparently my breastmilk isn't enough for LO. As if I don't feel insecure about BFing as it is. My original plan was to exclusively BF but here in the nicu it isn't possible so half of LO's feeds are bottles. There has been so much pressure for her to gain weight faster so she is getting the neosure 24 cal with my hindmilk for half of her feeds. Well ever since the dr changed the orders and started her on this, she has been spitting up more and seems like she has tummy aches and is uncomfortable and has a hard time going to sleep. Did anyone else's LO have issues with this? I think I'm going to talk to the dr about it today. I would really like her to not have to have the supplement at all and just have good ole fashioned breastmilk. Anyone take their baby off the neosure and just do breastmilk when they got home?
This discussion has been closed.
Re: Breastmilk with Neosure
I tried to EBF when I got home from the hospital and it didn't go well for myself or LO. Apparently DD's suck wasn't strong enough to get me to let down so even thought she was BF'ing 20 minutes on each side she wasn't getting enough and did not gain any weight the first week home from the hospital. My ped told me that if she had lost weight they would have readmitted her for failure to thrive. I went home and bawled my eyes out. Then my husband and I went to BRU and got a case of neosure. (22 cal)
Neosure does make the baby VERY gassy, so our ped told us to use gas drops at each feeding. We actually put a few drops right into each bottle. It helped a lot. My MIL had had a child with colic so she taught me some different thigns to try and help DD get the gas out. Between those two things we was a huge improvement.
At DDs 3 month well baby check she was in the 75th percentile for height and weight, so our ped told us that we could drop the Neosure.
Good Luck with whatever you decide!
So how many feedings did you use neosure for? All or half? And what were the things to try to get the gas out?
I nursed and then supplemented with neosure (made with water not breast milk). I supplemented every feed. My ped told me to give her 10-12 minutes on each breast and then supplement her until she turned food away. She said babies will not over-eat at this stage. I kept a log of every feeding, but I don't remeber how much she was getting with each supplement.
For gas issues:
-Warm wash cloth (not hot!) on the tummy
-gently massage the tummy
-lay the baby tummy down across your legs and rub the lower back.
-put the baby high up on your shoulder so that their abdomen is pressing down on shoulder (their head will hang down your back and their legs will hang down your chest)
-lay baby on their back and "bicycle" the legs
-lay the baby flat on their back, hold the bottoms of their feet and push their feet towards their belly until knees are bent at the 90 degree angle (the baby should look like they are sitting on a chair)
-Vibration! Put the baby in a bouncy chair that vibrates, if you don't have one the carseat on top of the dryer works- just not right after you feed them!
NICU will not give your baby pure breastmilk unless you actually breastfeed. My DD had fortified milk in the hospital. We came home with Neosure and it made her miserable and gassy so we stopped fortifying. She still gained weight. We went back to one fortified bottle a day, so that she sleeps a little longer at night (horrible, I know). She had a lot of emesis in the hospital in general, and I think it was a precurser to the acid reflux she has now. Babies do very differently at home than in the hospital.
At the same time I am breastfeeding. It is totally possible. I have basically weened DD off the bottle. She now gets two bottles a day total, and that's just for my sanity and so I can go to sleep a little earlier, and get a little sleep in the morning. I hired an LC. I could not have done this otherwise. Don't think that just because you are not successful in the NICU, you can't be at home. It just takes a lot of work and perseverance.
You can PM me if you have any questions.
Oh how I can commiserate with you on this one! They were adding the powdered "fortifiers" to my BM for C once we got into the NSCU. I could tell that it affected him too (he was quite gassy and he pooped less, it seemed like it made him constipated). To this day I blame his hernia on having to strain to poop with that stuff.
Anyway before we left I made sure they stopped fortifying for the last 2 days to prove that the breastmilk was enough. And sure enough he gained both days and they let us go home on just breastmilk. I would def push for this if you can.
Oh and YGPM again, lol