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Dave,
Congratulations to you and your family - #4 right?
I'll preface my advice by saying that I was VERY committed to
breastfeeding and would have been HEARTBROKEN if I had to give it up.
Don't throw in the towel yet! Your pedi should have the name of a
lactation specialist, if not try the La Leche league - both options
were lots of help for us.
Our pedi told us that although jaundice is common, breastmilk jaundice
is not. The diagnosis is the most common reasons that new moms give
up breastfeeding during the first few weeks though. If it is breastmilk
jaundice, 24 hours of formula/water should take care of it for good.
Some of my nonprofessional advice:
Have Wendy express some milk into a bottle, if Jacob drinks that as
readily as he did the formula - you'll know he prefers the bottle, its
easier to suck. If Wendy has been engorged, getting the milk out has been
tough for him.
After feeding on both sides for 10-15 minutes, offer him a bottle of
formula, if he drinks more than 1 or 2 ozs of formula, breastfeed him more
often. The supply will increase with the demand. Also, pumping
in between feedings will help increase demand.
My arms ache to hold a little one again ....Lots of love and blessings
to your whole family.
Rochelle
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| Dave,
This happened to the wife of a coworker several years ago. As
with your child, the jaundice resumed whenever she resumed
breastfeeding. This is rare, but it does happen. This woman's
doctor told her that her baby was essentially allergic to its
mother's milk. . .
If your wife's milk supply dried up that fast, and the baby is
flourishing on formula, I'd go ahead and go with it.
Breastfeeding is very satisfying for the mother, and worth putting
some effort into, but the real goal is to feed the baby. Not
breastfeeding this one is not going to cause it to grow up into a
depraved criminal or a psycho case. I breastfed one baby,
formula-fed the other two, and they're all equally happy and
healthy.
Besides, if you bottle-feed this one, *you* can get some of the
joys of feeding a baby. That was one of the main reasons we opted
for bottle-feeding Steven -- he was my second but my husband's
first, and he admitted he would feel VERY left out if I were the
only one who got to feed the baby. Even when I nursed David, we
had Neil give him a bottle of breastmilk every day. I don't know
if you've been doing this in the past but it's definitely a
benefit to both baby and father.
--bonnie
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| Thanks, Rochelle and Bonnie,
We have had 3 bad, one good experience with breastfeeding. Our first
got lots of bottles in the hospital, because he stayed after Wendy came
home. He did get breastmilk, though, as she pumped. After he came home,
we nursed for one month, but after one month, and supplemental bottles
after nursing, he still didn't hit his birth wieght. Dr.s called it
"failure to thrive", and we went to bottlefeeding at their suggestion.
Josh grew 2 inches and gained nearly 3 lbs. in 10 days! That sealed it
for us...we stuck with bottlefeeding for him.
#2, Carrie, nursed perfectly from minute 1, never had a problem, and
nursed for 9 months when she gave it up on her own.
#3, Daniel, nursed wonderfully in the hospital, and then developed a
severe yeast infection in his mouth (thrush). He wouldn't eat anything
well, but would tolerate a bottle somehwat. He wouldn't even attempt
breastfeeding (at 13 days old went 12 hrs without eating, screaming the
whole time, rather than breastfeed). Dr. said it was probably too
painful for him, as it requires much more strenuous mouth movements,
and thrush to the extent he had it was painful. It took nearly 3 weeks
for the thrush to fully resove, and he never would nurse again (every
time we tried, he lost weight rapidly) Wendy did pump and he got mostly
her breastmilk for the first 6 weeks.
#4, Jacob, went through what I described above. By this time, we know
that bottle fed children can thrive just as weel as breastfed. Both
have their easier and more difficult points. In actuality, it is
somewhat easier on Wendy to bottle feed, with 3 outher children under
the age of 6 in the house, because someone else can help out with the
feeding...it doesn't have to be 30-45 of her undivided attention when
he's hungry. She was also told, by 2 doctors, that since this had
recurred twice (*very* unusual), that it was farily likely to happen
again. We just didn't think it worth it to test it out. So he is on
formula and grtowing and gaining like crazy, making up for what he lost
in the first several weeks of life.
I *do* enjoy feeding him, Bonnie, you're right! Except at 2:00
a.m....................
Still curious just how common this is....seems like we've hit an
unusual string of breastfeeding problems!
--dave--
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| Our first child, Emma, had breast-milk jaundice. It was somewhat disconcerting
especially since Emma was our first child. However for a variety of reasons,
my wife, April, nursed Emma the entire time and we never had any problems.
The reasons we stuck with the nursing were:
We had a liberal pediatrician, and even though Emma's bilirubin was somewhat
high, it never got dangerously high, so our pediatrician recommended April
continue nursing.
April had alot of milk and Emma thrived on the nursing, so no problems there.
Another pediatrician at the clinic had a child with breast-milk jaundice
and had continued nursing, so the our pediatricians was familiar with
the scenario.
All family members, were strongly supportive of nursing, my sister was a
La Leche League leader at the time.
Anyway the interesting thing was there was this other pediatrician
at the medical school that was doing a study on breast-milk jaundice,
this was in Madison, Wisconsin, and he was all excited to find us
and get some real live data. So one of the experiments we tried was
to have April express, then we warmed the milk to some temperature, then
fed it to Emma. The theory was that this was going to breakdown whatever
caused the jaundice. Anyway once I broke the jar the milk was in, April
was 'out' of milk, and Emma wanted some, so we canned that experiment.
Then when this research pediatrician found out I was Greek, he got even
more excited. It turns out, he had done some studies in Greece, and there
is a higher than normal incidence of breast-milk jaundice in Greece and other
Mediterranean countries. So he took my bilirubin count, and sure enough
it was higher than normal! So I got classified as having Gilbert's Syndrome
(sp?). Furthermore he then wanted to me to do this experiment where I had
to swallow this 'string-pill'. It was essentially a piece of string that they
would tape onto my cheek, and I had to swallow the other end so it would sit
in my stomach, and he wanted me to sleep a whole night like that! Then they
would pull it up and be able to test something or other on the end of
the string. At that we had a good laugh, and called an end to the experiments.
I mean, we were only willing to do so much in the name of science!!!
So the end result was that Emma was nursed until she gave up nursing
voluntarily at 14 months. This was probably influenced by the fact that
April got pregnant again at that time and it seems the breast milk changes
taste when the mother is pregnant.
Our next two children were also nursed, and neither of them had breast-milk
jaundice.
-peter
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