False Alarm

Had our first emergency room visit last night.

There were a whole bunch of things that led up to it, but ultimately I think it was just first timers nervousness and inexperience.

I swear we walked in their with "Newbie" stamped across our foreheads.

At the same time, I think there needs to be way more information and professional help when it comes to breastfeeding.

Everything in the medical profession seems to have some measurable quantifier - except breastfeeding. Doctors and parents have no way of measuring how much you're producing, how much your kid is consuming, when or how often. You're supposed to chart it yourself, but as any new parent knows, things get cloudy in the middle of the night.

You can quantify how long a session lasted or how many you've had, but you don't know how much the baby's had.

You have to discern the difference between consumption sucking and comfort sucking.

You also have to wake the kid and essentially force feed them.

Since leaving the hospital the major concern has been her number of "wets" (i.e. how many times she's peed). The first day home she was a pooping machine, so we couldn't really tell if she'd peed.

I figured whatever. Everyone pees.

The second day the poops stopped. Everything seemed to stop. We were putting tissues in the front of her diaper to catch any wetness, but we weren't seeing anything.

It turns out, we also missed a couple of feedings. Unbeknownst to me the baby has to hit the breast every two hours the first week to stimulate milk production. I mistakenly thought you fed the baby when they're hungry, so I let Jen sleep a little longer then she should have a couple of times (My post from the other morning depicts this).

So here where things snowball. Remember we're all running on a severe lack of sleep.

The home-visit nurse expressed concern about the lack of "wets". Checked her mucous glands in her mouth to make sure she was hydrated, but said we should give Abby an ounce of sterile water if we don't get a wet in the next two hours. If she still didn't pee, we should call our pediatrician.

Two hours or more (definitely more) went by and we didn't get any wets. We gave her the water, which she drank but we felt horrible for doing. Water provides 0 nutritional value to a newborn. We just filled her belly with nothing and she looked like it.

A little while later it was time to feed - still no wets. While feeding Jen took her temperature from under her arm and it was 100°F.

We called the pediatrician and they said take her to the hospital.

Me demonstrating perfectly bad burping posture.

By the time we got into the examining room (which goes real fast when you have a newborn), she had peed, pooped and her temperature was down.

The ER Dr. was like "You guys are new at this aren't you?", so we packed it up and headed home.

Much like the home-visit nurse, she left us with instructions to have a wet by 4am or 6am.

Sure Doc. No problem.

4am goes by - nothing.

6am goes by - nothing.

8am, 10am - nothing.

Meanwhile I run out to buy a breast pump. The emergency room Dr. suggested pumping to supplement the milk stimulation. Also you can measure pumped breast consumption better then baby to breast.consumption - confuse the hell out of the infants suck habits, but measurable consumption which makes Doctors happiest.

Finally around 11:30 we got a wet.

Diapers come with yellow lines that turn blue with a wet. We didn't learn this until yesterday. We didn't learn to accurately read the blue line until today. Seems simple doesn't it? Stay awake and hungry for 4 days, then try it.

We had our first appointment with the pediatrician at 1:15. At the appointment we actually got two more wets and Jen squeezing milk out of her breasts with her own hands (sorry. no pictures of that. It's really not as hot as it sounds anyway.).

Our pediatrician was totally cool. She said it was good to go to the emergency room for the temperature, but all the other stuff was a bit on the hysterical side. She kept reminding us our baby is only three days old and doesn't pee that much anyway. She completely threw the numbers and measurements out the window. She scientifically admitted not all babies are the same. Abby is perfectly healthy and the milk is coming in fine.

Back at home Abby had a good afternoon feeding. How can you tell it's a good feeding?

She gets drunk on milk and passes out to the world around her.


Drunk like her Dad after a few Hop Wallops.

ps. for those with babies on the way (i.e. Jeff & Sara), I highly recommend "The Breastfeeding Book" from the Sears Library. Granted it's not quite as detailed as I'd like (It would have to read, "When Abigail does this" to be that detailed.), but it's an awesome resource anyway.

- b