questions about a friend of mine..

[jenn5388]

Hello,

first time poster, long time lurker. lol

I was able to BF miranda for a whole 6 days, so I don't know if this is right some stuff that was told to my friend.. it seems off.. so I thought I'd ask you guys.

my bestfriend just had her first child on the 30th..

I called her today to see how everything was going, and she was sent home already.. so I had to call her house. lol anyway, I ask her how everything was going. first a bit of a background... He was born at 36.6 weeks Via Csection.

I guess he is Jaundiced. levels are at 13 something, miranda was jaundiced too, but they told her Formula was better for jaundiced babies because of some Ingriedent that breastmilk was missing to bring down the jaundice levels..

I've always heard breastfeeding was better for janudiced babies.. or so I thought... Am I wrong? I thought it helped because it helps get rid of the jaundice quicker.

I know doctors like babies that are on formula if they are jaundiced so they can keep track of how much they are getting. so it made me wonder if they just told her this so she would FF, but that doesn't make any sense, why would they want to have her FF over BF?

Then she told me her nipples were cracked and bleeding, which okay, bad latch, I asked if she got ahold of a lactation consultant, and i guess she told my friend she's having problems because the baby is premature.. He's not that premature. is that a good reason? he was 7lbs 7oz and 19 1/2 inches long.. he's not like a 4 pounder or anything. I guess he doesn't have a problem with sucking.. my other friend said it might be because of the nipple size VS his mouth size, but I don't know.

I guess they are giving her a breast pump so she can pump, but if it's not going to help with the jaundice then why would they be doing that? it's all very confusing to me, and my friend just had a c-section a couple days ago so i wasn't going to bager her with 500 questions.. but since she's completely new to all of this, I thought they might be feeding her a line of bull.. so I thought I'd come and ask the experts.

Thanks.

jennifer

[Shyla]

My ds was very jaundiced and me pediatrician told me to exclusively BF not to FF. If you ask me it is a bunch of bull. Also she should be stripping his clothes off till he is naked and putting him in direct sunlight (not in his eyes of course) and she should be BFing him often. This is what we had to do both my boys were jaundice actually ds had to be readmitted his jaundice was so bad but I was never made to give him formula

http://pediatrics.about.com/library/...stfeedingh.htm
http://www.adopting.org/adoptions/fa...factsheet.html

both these links say BFing should not need to stop or substituted with formula

[kymdenise]

She might be just uncomfortable and looking for an excuse to quit bfing.. My SIL did that.. first her nips were sore, and the next thing we knew the story was her milk didn't come in.. push come to shove, it was painful and she didn't want to continue nursing.. and you know what? That was fine. I just wish she'd been more honest. Not to make assumptions, but I really have a hard time believing any doctor would reccomend formula over breastmilk...

[Calideedle]

Many DRs do say to use formula (always fast to jump on that wagon) for jaundice though BFing helps way more and there is no real reason to use formula in that case! Her nipples will be sore getting use to having a baby suck on them and them being wet more often but if she is in pain then the latch is wrong!