It is almost (but not quite) axiomatic that preemies have problems breastfeeding. They spend weeks, sometimes months in the NICU where their mothers can only be for a limited number of hours a day. Moms find they're not producing enough milk or that the pump is too inconvenient. Babies get hooked on bottles and moms find that exceedingly difficult emotionally etc, etc, ad nauseum.
Well. Betsy started out eating ok. I would give her 20 minutes to see what she could find to eat on her own, then pump and feed her. I did this every 3 hours. Bit by bit, she just stopped being willing to try and breastfeed. She would scream for 20 minutes, then I would pump and she would get a bottle. That sounds terribly calm and dispassionate, I'm sure. The reality is so damn much worse that I just cant imagine communicating the distress. Your darwin WANTS you to breastfeed. And a breast pump is not a kid. Your body knows there's a kid right there and it won't eat and somehow that is ALL YOUR FAULT. Never mind what you rationally know is true. Which is that the nutrition is the same whether you pump it and feed your kid or the kid takes it direct from the tap. No big difference. Except that you are a total chump failing to do something you were BUILT to do. Or at least you feel that way.
So one of the lactation consultants at Alexandria INOVA (My only negative experience of that hospital by the way) basically told me they didn't want to deal with me until after my child's due date. I should pump and feed her until November. Bitch. In retrospect, I think we just had a miscommunication, but I still resent the hell out of her for discouraging me from coming in. I talked to Ann-Without-Whom-I-Could-Not-Function and my pediatrician and got another lactation consulting practice. One that is not based out of a hospital where they're usually helping full term women with the basics. One that spends more time with preemies at the recommendation of pediatricians.
And the problem seems to have vanished. Overnight almost even. The problem? Overfeeding. When you bottle feed a kid, it's very easy to overfeed. You can trigger a suck reflex without the child's explicit desire for more food. So every time I fed Betsy from the bottle I wasn't premesuring. Hell, I had no idea what she'd gotten from the breast, so I couldn't judge. I just stuffed her like a goose destined to make foi gras until she couldn't take any more. Three hours later, she wasn't hungry. Wouldnt breastfeed and I'd do it again.
Anyhow, for the past 24 hours, the only bottles the sprocket has gotten have been so that we could all go back to sleep faster at 2am. There could be a great deal more said about this, but I have to be at yet-another-daycare-center at 2pm, in half an hour. Since we need care 6 weeks earlier than previously expected, I'm in a bit of a jam again.
Posted by karen at October 24, 2002 12:00 AM