Advice for friend on jaundice, baby not feeding well...ASAP

[gills8752]

Hey,

My friend's bubs is 3 days old and not feeding well, very sleepy, mw's think she's got jaundice. Just waiting on test results. She's still in hospital.
Has anyone got any advice? She's thinking of topping up with formula and worried about nipple confusion, I remember a while back someone saying about using a syringe or sippy cup instead of a bottle to help reduce confusion.
Obviously told her to keep expressing, lots of skin to skin and keep trying to get her to latch. Does anyone have any other tips? Experience?

Thanks al!

 

[Ozzieshunni]

No need to use formula, just feed feed feed! Alex was a big jaundiced and the MWs advised just continuing to breastfeed as much as possible. I think summer rain has some good info on BFing and jaundice

 

[gills8752]

That what I've said to her, just to keep trying boob, and stimulate her milk to come in. Shes still on colostrum just now. She's a first time mum so I think the mw's might pressure her a bit. I just want to make sure that if she does end up formula she does it in the best way to make sure boob feeding goes well.
She does really want to succeed at bfing so hopefully that will carry her through, and I keep texting her advice! lol

 

[summer rain]

70% of term babies and up to 95% of pre-term babies are jaundiced; its a normal physiological process, sometimes jaundice can make babies sleepy but you just have to wake them to feed-there is absolutely no need to top up with formula and in some cases it can actually delay the passage of jaundice out of their system and make the levels spike even more (ditto for a sugar water drip), the absolute best choice would be expressed milk fed by syringe or cup if required. All my boys were very heavily jaundiced as it is something hereditary in both mine and OHs family and sometimes the FF babies need more treatment than the BF ones xx

 

[gills8752]

Thank you! I'll pass that on to her!

 

[summer rain]

There is also something less common called blood group incompatibility jaundice; if her baby started showing signs of jaundice before 24 hours old, then this is a strong possibility-it usually occurs when the mum is O blood group and the dad is A or B or any of the other rarer blood groups, and the baby turns out to be A or B etc as well, again the best method to deal with this is lots of breastmilk and high intensity phototherapy (double, triple or quad lights) and the levels will eventually go down but in rare cases donor milk (or if this is not available formula) will need to be given for a few hours to help the levels to fall xx

 

[Cinnamon Girl]

as far as i know Breast milk flushes jaudice faster

 

[gills8752]

Thanks! She's waiting on test results so hopefully that'll show something more useful. She doesn't look very jaundice, just a little tinge of yellow in the photo.
She's topping up with formula in a sippy cup and syringe as she's not getting enough colostrum/milk out, but she's keeping going with expressing and putting baby to the boob to stimulate, lots of skin to skin so hopefully she'll drop the formula soon. Think she's worried about baby not getting enough to eat to get better.
I don't think she showed signs of jaundice until after 24 hours as she was hopeful to get home yesterday, today at latest but is looking like she's having to stay again tonight.

 

[Ozzieshunni]

Babies tummies are the size of a large marble. She needs to stop the formula and just feed off the breast. She is making enough. There is a very small percentage of women that cannot make enough milk to feed their LOs.

 

[gills8752]

Thanks, yeah I'm all pro dropping the formula and getting on the boob, I've text her everything you guys have said. Can only let her make her own decision at the end of the day though.
You've all been very helpful! Its always so positive in here, need to get my baby out and make my way back in here again! Thank you!

 

[summer rain]

What ozziesh said, also jaundice is very rarely a sign of them 'not getting enough', all babies are born with an excess of red blood cells in their system, some have more than others-say if they got a lot of blood from the mum in late pregnancy, and in the first 2-3 weeks these break down quicker than their body can excrete them out-simple as. Unless a baby has very very high levels of jaundice in the first few days (they would be flourescent yellow all over including the eyes or even green or orange skinned) and is completely listless then it is not jaundice due to not getting enough; a slight yellow tinge on the face is not of concern at all and most hospitals would discharge a baby with this xx

 

[lozzy21]

My LO had quite bad jaundice resulting in 4 days of triple phototherapy treatment, she was close to needing a blood transfusion. In cases like my LO's is is virtually impossible to get LO to BF, she was just to tired.

Tell your friend to keep offering baby the boob but if baby doesent take it then to keep up cup feeding to prevent nipple confusion. Tell her to express every 2 hours. If her milk hasn't come in yet she can hand express onto a medicine spoon and feed that to baby.

 

[ellie27]

Hope all is ok.

Newborns being very sleepy is common in the early days. Up til 6 wks my LO would only feed for less than a minute at a time then fall asleep - so frustrating.

But I just hung in there!

My LO was also jaundiced - it just cleared at 10 weeks!!!

From 7/8wks onwards my LO just got bigger and stronger and got better at feeding and could actually take a proper feed and go a few hours til the next feed.

 

[gills8752]

Thanks all! Test results came back and she was just under the line so she should be getting home today! I'll get to see her once she's home as she's going to borrow my pump to keep up the expressing as well as putting babes to boob. Saw another pic and she looks perfect now.

Thanks all again for your advice! Away to bake a welcome home cake for her now!

 

[Ozzieshunni]

You're just north of me!

 

[punk_pig]

My milk hadn't come in at day 3 either and I was expressing to feed by syringe as LO struggled to latch (sleepy). The amount I got was less than 1ml from both boobs combined (they gave me these tiny syringes that only hold 1ml and mostly I was only getting them a quarter full). Baby was fine on this, I think it is normal that there isnt much there, I just had to make sure I either fed her or expressed at least every two hours. Then came night 4 where baby screamed practically the whole night, she latched and sucked, screamed relatched came off screamed etc. I tried expressing and feeding, she was still hungry....of course this was her getting hungry enough to bring in my milk proper. It was a GOOD thing and we got through it with no formula (and no sleep hehe). Next day my boobs were swelling before muy eyes as my milk filled them up.

 

[summer rain]

My LO had quite bad jaundice resulting in 4 days of triple phototherapy treatment, she was close to needing a blood transfusion. In cases like my LO's is is virtually impossible to get LO to BF, she was just to tired.

Tell your friend to keep offering baby the boob but if baby doesent take it then to keep up cup feeding to prevent nipple confusion. Tell her to express every 2 hours. If her milk hasn't come in yet she can hand express onto a medicine spoon and feed that to baby.

My eldest was worse than this; he had 4 lights on him for 4 days but from the sounds of it the OP's friends baby is just slightly jaundiced in the face so it sounds like normal newborn sleepiness today (and indeed they have been allowed to go home today) xx

 

[gills8752]

Seems to be a few of us lurking up in the north east just now Ozzie!