My DD2 made an early entrance on October 14 (EDD 11/09). Overall her health has been good however she has immature nursing reflexes and disorganized suck/swallow/breathe rhythm while eating. We have been working with the lactation nurses and even OT and speech (so many specialist and only 1 week old). I have been feeding her expressed milk with a syringe. This had been a tedious and time consuming endeavor but of course we would do anything for her. Today she had another weight check and she is down a pound. We have also realized that she lacks the hunger trigger and would literally never cry for food and would starve herself if we were not on the ball with timed feedings. She will be getting a NG tube on Friday if she looses anymore weight.
Today the reports from the pediatrician, OT, speech, and lactation nurses were presented to us and the collective determination is that Hazel can no longer nurse or attempt to nurse. She is burning more calories eating than she is consuming during that feeding. She also has to start a high caloric formula if our insurance will not cover a nutritional booster to add to my expressed breast milk.
I am so disappointed that I can breastfeed. I am still pumping and storing my milk with the hopes that she can eat it soon but it doesn't seem that is going to happen.
With her being a premie I was really looking forward to giving her further protection through my antibodies.
Sorry for the long AW/rant. I am just so disappointed!
Re: Breastfeeding disappointment (aw/rant)
I know you probably already know all this and that doesn't help with how you feel right now, but it sounds like you're doing the best you can do right now.
Good luck and thoughts to you and LO.
Hazel is my 5th LO but no two pregnancies or babies are the same and each can make you feel like a FTM all over again. (Especially when it's been almost 9 years since my last LO was born!)
Your LO will get the hang of it just keep the faith! I am a NICU nurse and we see this all the time, but I am surprised that they aren't trying to get your LO to bottle feed to work on those sucking muscles and work up to trying to latch again. If I were you and you are okay with trying the bottle than push a little harder and just make sure OT is there when you do it. OT is great with having little tricks and tips to help pace while bottle feeding so that there is no choking or spit ups. Good luck mama and hang in there; little Hazel will come along at her own pace.
I remember how hard that is, my daughter was only 2 weeks early and she had a lot of difficulty latching...we tried the syringe method and she was losing weight so they advised she needed to be supplemented with formula after about 10 days. Once she started taking the nipple from a bottle it seemed like their was no going back, I could never successfully get her to take breast after that.
I pumped for 2 months and that was supplemented with formula. It was really hard on me, I felt really discouraged and was so emotional because it was so important for me to feed my daughter by breast instead of bottle...
I look back now and she is a happy healthy energetic 6 year old, she didn't have any issues by not being breastfed. This time I am hoping we do not run into those same issues, try not be discouraged...it's all about going with the flow and doing what's going to be best for you and baby girl.
I thinks it's awesome if you can still get milk with pumping!! It's so cool that when he's ready you'll have a ton of mommy milk to give him! If a baby can go from boob to bottle I don't see why they can't go from bottle to boob.