New Momma needs help!! Can I supplement goats

Hello all... I had my son on Dec 1st so tommorow he's a month old already... anyways we got the thrush and we are breastfeeding. His weight dropped cause my milk supply did as well from being sick anyways the docs want me to supplement him with nasty formula which is gross and makes him constipated. I heard you could use goats milk has anyone ever done this? I am breastfeeding him very often and also pumping my own milk but he is a hungry growing boy!!! any suggestions?
Love to my family,
Sheilabear

 

I would just continue to breastfeed him as much as possible and not supplement with formula. Your milk supply will increase as you nurse more. It may take a little while, but your body will know what to do and it will produce to your baby's needs.

I don't know about giving goat's milk, I mean, goat's milk is for baby goats, right??

Good luck!

 

Is he losing weight? Is he gaining at least 3 oz a week on your milk alone? If so, there is no reason to supplement.

If you do need to supplement, see a private practice Board Certified Lactation Consultant BEFORE you do so, to make sure you are doing everything to make all the milk you can.

If there is no way you can make enough milk, you will HAVE TO use commercial formula. Goat's milk does not have the right protein balance (too much) had NO vitamin C (babies fed on goat milk years ago would get horrible cases of Scurvy) and lacks many many nutrients that you just can't add to it, without a Biochemistry Degree.

How are you treating the thrush? Both you and the baby NEED to be treated or it will just continue on. There is a "Stickey" at the top of this page, with good info about treating Thrush.http://hipforums.com/forums/showthread.php?t=172963

Your baby needs to be fed on Demand, with no supplements to see if he is growing properly. Most moms have absolutey NO need for extra pumping. What is his birth weight, his lowest weight at release (or at about the third day, if a home birth) and what is his weight now? This will tell me a lot about what is going on. Also, how often is he nursing, on average, and WHO ends the nursing, you or him? Are feedings being timed at all? How many times does he nurse between 10 PM and 7 AM? (I'm a Board Certified Lactation Consultant, and I cannot substitute for someone who you NEED to see to do a Latch Assesment, In Person) but these questions will tell me a lot about what may be going on here. BUT, you still need to see a Private Practice LC. NOT a hospital based one. They don't have the time. If you can't find one, I can petition my freinds and collegues and find you one who will see you in your area.

Blessings.

Maggie

 

sometimes supplements really are necessary. They were for my first baby. What I didn't know at the time, but wish I had known, was that those supplements could have been human breastmilk. First, go seek out a board certified (IBCLC) lactation consultant (or two or three). If supplements are necessary, get a rental breastpump and make them as much human milk as possible. But if it's slow gain and not weight loss, maybe the only problem is you aren't nursing him quite often enough or long enough, or maybe he had a huge growth spurt, using up all his calories getting taller instead of fatter. One week of slow gain is no reason to compromise your milk supply by giving formula (or goat milk). In the meantime, nurse baby as often as you can get him to latch on, as long as you can get him to keep latching on the other side when he pops off. It might be all day and all night, but that's normal for newborns!! Most doctors know absolutely nothing about breastfeeding, seek answers elsewhere.

 

Hello again,
in answer to Maggies questions...he weighed 7lbs 15 ounces at birth upon release he was 7lbs 5 ounces. He was weighed at the docs 3 days after release and weighed 7lbs 6 ounces. He was taken to Wic and weighed 8lbs 4 ounces then a week later was taken back to the docs for thrush and was down to 7lbs 12 ounces. He is averaging 3-4 feedings from 10-7 and about every 2 and a half hours during the day he sometimes feeds for more than an hour and a half! I always offer both breasts and unless I must get up he always ends the feedings. He's the boss. He has plenty of diapers every day. I know that he was fussy when the thrush was at its worst and we are both being treated with Nystatin. I also used gentian violet for 3 days over Xmass. The thrush seems to be getting better. I hope his weight gain improves he has an appt on 12-4 so we'll see. He just awoke so I'll write more later.
Thanks,
Sheila

 

OK, the weight thing. He was weighed on a number of different scales. Scales can be off from each other's weights by more than a pound, so the doctor can't use the WIC weighing, the hospital weighing and his doctor's office and take them all as truth.

You are feeding him well. You are letting him start and end the feedings, you are not timing them, all GOOD!

When you see an LC, let HER scale be the one which is used all the time. I put the number of the scale on my client's charts, so I always use the same scale with that baby. Even a good digital pre and post feed usable scale needs to be calibrated and the same scale needs to be used with the same baby.

Your doctor's office scale, most likely cannot be used for pre and post feed weighs. These "Slidey Bouncey" scales, as I call them (They bounce when you put the baby on them, and you have to SLIDE a bar across to get a weight. BOTH of these are signs of a poor scale that can't be used for small intake uses. I ONLY use the Medela Baby Weigh or the Medela Baby Checker. Both are electronic, and made to get pre and post feeds. You lactation consultant should be using one of these scales in her Consultation. Not a "Bouncey Slidey" scale. You will get better weights and more accurate weighs and, if you have to, get at least one pre and post feed weigh. (And these are not written in stone. Sometimes you get the baby at a pre and post feed weigh and he just isn't hungry and then doctors freak out.)

How many diapers are you seeing in 24 hours, without suppelenting? (Are they cloth or disposable.) How many pees and how many poops? Nearly ALL poops also count as pee. A healthy baby his age should have 5-6 really wet diapers every 24 hours and about 3 poops or more. (If you are not sure if he is wet, put some Kleenex right in front of his penis, so you can see if he pees a lot. The Kleenex should be soaked after a few hours.)

If he was Circed, the pain can effect his milk intake for more than a week, so keep that in mind. Circumcision is very painful, and has been identified as one of the main causes of latch and milk transfer issues. A baby who has been circed needs MORE time to gain weight, because he has to overcome the trauma and sometimes relearn how to nurse to get milk.

Good luck. Please call an LC, who is in private practice. www.breastfeeding.com calling 1 800 TELL YOU, or going to ILCA or www.iblce.org will help you find an LC. Tell me if you can''t find one.

 

Thanks Maggie, seems like we are hitting the target with the dirty diaper mark right now we are using disposables but will be switching to cloth soon. Yeah the wic scale was a digital and so was the hospitals but the docs was a boucy slidy. I am pleased to say we are finally getting releif from the thrush and the little guy seems to be doing much better. I am pumping an extra 6 oz of breast milk everyday to supplement with. Thanks for you're input and I will be calling that number asap.
Sheilabear

 

Cool. Keep up the good work. Do keep an eye on his output, and make sure the same scale is used to weigh the baby the next time. Even an other digital scale can be off from the one they used the first time.

Diflucan is the Cadillac of Thrush treatments. I've used it succesfully, with both my clients and for myself, and for my last baby. IMO, nothing works better or faster. Remember more than 60% or more of yeast strains in North America are resistant, totally or partially, to Nystatin, and it has NO penetrating action. It can do nothing for yeast which gets into the milk ducts or penetrates the first few layers of skin. Even the Gentian is better at that.

Take care and please see the LC ASAP. Don't wait until things get worse, as they may as you are going through this with the yeast still active. And there may also be latch issues, which may have caused the abrasions which allowed yeast in AND could have caused a drop in milk supply which can not be determined on the internet, you have to have an IBCLC SEE you nurse to determine that.