Baby still losing weight at 1 week old

[hrouth]

Hi ladies,

Hoping someone can help as I'm in a mess today!

My baby girl was born last week, at 37+6, weighing 6lb 1oz. She was weighed at 5 days old and was 5lb9oz. Today she is a week old and has been weighed again, she has lost a total of 7.25% of her birth weight. She is slightly jaundiced in the face, and her poop is a runny dark green, it isn't yellow yet.

My midwife suggested she could be dehydrated and to consider topping up with formula after a feed. She is coming back in 2 days, on Saturday, to weigh her again and if she has lost weight suggested she will need to go into hospital to be fed fluids.

My baby does feed frequently, or so I thought, every 2 or 3 hours or sometimes more frequently. The past couple of days she has been harder to settle at the breast, she sucks for a bit but only 5 mins or so and then pulls away. My midwife said my latching and positioning is fine so I don't know what to do. I feel like a failure, that my baby isn't doing well because I must be doing something wrong, but I didn't want to feed her formula.

Can anyone offer me any advice? I have sent the hubby to the shop to buy formula and also a breast pump, wondering if I could try and express milk and see if she takes to a bottle better, but I just don't know where to start or how I go about expressing milk either!!

Thank you for taking the time to read xx

 

[summer rain]

I really don't know but the advice of your midwife sounds wrong to me. Babies who are jaundiced (and jaundice is NORMAL; and in 99.9% of cases nothing to do with milk intake!) do often have dark green or very bright orange poo due to the bilirubin, also dark green poo can be a sign of other things, such as not getting enough hindmilk and too much foremilk (which is very common at this stage as your milk is still coming in) or certain food intolerances via your milk, how many pooey nappies does your baby have a day? 7.25% is not a worry and the midwife should not be weighing your baby again after only 48 hours, its against their own guidelines (they should be weighed once at around 5 days to guage weight percentage loss then again at 14 days to see if it has been regained). Most midwives wouldn't know good latching and positioning if it hit them in the face, in the early days my LOs latch was terrible; he has a mild tongue tie and receding jaw so he was only latched onto the end of the nipple but all the visiting midwives said his latch was 'perfect'. You could try to express but if possible try to feed by cup rather than bottle because bottles at this stage could cause quite a few problems, personally I would just keep feeding frequently, have confidence in yourself and see what happens on Saturday xx

 

[punk_pig]

Not sure what country you are in but here in the UK if you look at the growth chart in your red book you'll see that the graph doesn't start till week 2 - this is because babies WILL lose weight and should not be expected to regain birth weight till 10-14 days after birth. A drop of anything up to 10% is considered normal.

I dont think your MW should be recommending formula based on weight alone - if she is UK she is ignoring her UNICEF training by pushing formula based on just a 7% weight loss.

I'm not sure about her pulling away?? I do find that MWs don't always know when there is a latch issue and I was told my pain was normal and latch was good so introduced a bottle of expressed milk - all this did was make a bad latch worse!! Lactation consultants like those from NCT or LLL knew a lot more and spotted my issues straight away. I would contact them ASAP before considering formula.

 

[summer rain]

Not sure what country you are in but here in the UK if you look at the growth chart in your red book you'll see that the graph doesn't start till week 2 - this is because babies WILL lose weight and should not be expected to regain birth weight till 10-14 days after birth. A drop of anything up to 10% is considered normal.

I dont think your MW should be recommending formula based on weight alone - if she is UK she is ignoring her UNICEF training by pushing formula based on just a 7% weight loss.

I'm not sure about her pulling away?? I do find that MWs don't always know when there is a latch issue and I was told my pain was normal and latch was good so introduced a bottle of expressed milk - all this did was make a bad latch worse!! Lactation consultants like those from NCT or LLL knew a lot more and spotted my issues straight away. I would contact them ASAP before considering formula.

100% agree with this advice. xx

 

[summer rain]

Taken from

https://webarchive.nationalarchives...dinfantnutrition/UK-WHOgrowthcharts/index.htm

NICE guidance (NICE: PH11; 2008) is that as a minimum, babies should be weighed (naked) at birth and at 5 and 10 days, as part of an overall assessment of feeding and thereafter as needed.

Only class III clinical electronic scales in metric setting should be used to weigh infants. These should be maintained and calibrated annually, in line with medical devices standards.

Some degree of weight loss is common in the first week. A weight loss of 10% or more needs careful assessment.

Recovery of birth weight by 2 weeks indicates that feeding is effective and the child is well.

Once feeding is established, if parents wish, or if there is professional concern, babies can be weighed at 6-8 weeks, 12 and 16 weeks. Babies should usually be weighed at 12-13 months at the time of routine immunisations.

If there is concern, weigh more often; however, weights measured too close together are often misleading, so babies should be weighed:

no more than once a month up to 6 months of age
once every two months from 6 to 12 months of age
once every three months over the age of 1 year. However most children do not need to be weighed this often.

It is now recommended to weigh at 5 and 14 days as it is now recognised that many healthy babies do not regain their birthweight until at least 14 days instead of 10 xx

 

[Ozzieshunni]

All of the above

 

[helloeveryone]

sorry not much advice but just to feed ,feed ,feed. my baby was born with a cleft lip and i was told i would proberly have to top up with a bottle,but i didn't want that so i spent sometimes hours and mostly every 3 hours at least..luckerly for me he put on weight fine so i didn't need to top up,

your body mostly always makes enough milk, so just feed,feed and more feed.
If your baby keeps pulling of your breast you could check her mouth for signs of thrush, but if she has thrush you will soon now because it will be sooo painfull to feed..

good luck with things and keep us posted.xx

 

[summer rain]

According to my calculations your baby has only lost another oz at most since the other day, which is such a tiny amount (which can be accounted for by a different set of scales; your baby just having done a poo or wee etc) and to be expected when they keep weighing every other day-hence the change in guidelines! I am absolutely disgusted at how your midwife has behaved as I keep reading of these cases of midwives bullying new mums with the threat of their baby having to be readmitted, for a completely normal weight loss and well within the timeframe when they are expected to start putting weight on again. In all honesty if you went to the hospital now or even if your LO appeared to lose a tiny bit more; they would send you home and say its not of concern, so this midwife really is just scaremongering (I have a lot of experience of similar things having 4 boys and many nieces, nephews and young cousins) xx

 

[ellie27]

Hi!

My LO was 6 lb 3 oz and down to 5 lb 10 too, stopped losing weight at 9 days old, then started gaining slowly and got back to birthweight by day 18.

Sounds like you are doing good, only 7% drop!, although I know how you feel - them constantly telling you to top-up!

I couldnt express anything, nothing came out, I didnt want to top-up every feed which is what they suggested. Just hang in there, your LO is still young!!

My LO's jaundice has just cleared at 10 weeks old - it is nothing to worry about.

Keep going - feed at every waking moment!

 

[lozzy21]

Formula is not a mirical cure, my LO refused to latch at first so I had to give her formula. She was born at 8lb 15 and lost weight for two weeks going down to 8lb 4 despite having 3oz every 4 hours. At 3 weeks old she was up to 9lb.

 

[LM2104]

Hi, my DD was 8lb 13 and 1/4 ozs born was weighed on day five and was down to 8lb 2ozs and on day 10 she had only gained 30g so we have to take her to hospital tomorrow to be weighed again but my MW said do not give her formula just try feeding her more frequently.

I know how you feel because Im terrified she hasnt gained weight and that I will be blamed for it but I am trying my best aand I think thats all we can do.

Good Luck!