Late Preterm Baby and Feeding Part 2
Patience is needed in the evolving care plan. You think you are going to have a nursing champ and then he or she just looses steam and doesn't nurse well. So then, you are pumping and feeding and may lose hope about your plan to mostly nurse from the breast. I am here to tell you to not lose that hope! You will have that nursing baby, just not nursing at the breast for all the feedings right now.
What can you do? Every day, keep attempting to nurse and add some hand compression to the breast to help you baby to learn to keep going efficiently at the breast. Also, pump very often in the background to keep your supply up. Nurse the baby when he or she acts interested and keep up that skin to skin time for sure. Pumping and feeding will really help bring in your milk!
Why do we push the volume so much regarding feeding your newborn? Because we need to get baby really hydrated. More intake also helps decrease jaundice! (The more the baby poops, the less jaundice.) The 3rd and 4th days are the hardest for the new mom as her milk may not be in yet. Sometimes the new mom's milk comes in on day 5…Baby is needing more hydration with a lack of enough wet and stool diapers. What do you do? Best practices show donor milk to be right behind mom's own breast milk. . Donor milk from The Milk Bank is available at most hospitals, special care nurseries and NICU's.
Once your milk really transitions to that larger volume, replace the donor milk with your own pumped milk! Typically and generally speaking, each feeding the first week, after day 4, should be gradually increasing from about 30 mls. Each feeding should then increase to 60 mls each feeding as you approach the 2 week of age mark. If you do not choose donor milk from The Milk Bank, then formula is another good choice for getting some needed volume to the baby who is early. Getting enough volume to the baby is super important and the goal is to get baby back to his or her birth weight by the 14 day office visit with the Pediatrician.
Research all of your choices! Nursing at the breast is best, followed by your pumped milk, then donor milk, then formula, in that order. Research donor milk, formula, and how to increase your own supply of breast milk.
Back to my original point of having patience, a mom called me today to happily report that her 4 week old baby is now able to exclusively breastfeed all of the time! She had to be patient with her baby who arrived at 36 weeks. She did utilize donor milk in the NICU for a few days. Once home, she just nursed him for about half of the feedings for a long time. She and her husband bottle fed him pumped milk the other times to help him save energy to grow. It was no surprise that he started to nurse at the breast, exclusively and more effectively, around his due date! It took patience, persistence, and a supportive feeding plan involving best practices and they eventually made their goal of exclusive and effective nursing.
To learn more about the importance of human milk for premature babies, click here.