knowledge of practice related to laction among mothers whos children are admitted in nicu?

Answer 1

Hi, I hope you are asking this question as curiosity and not because you have to do this. My son was born premature (32 wks), last November. I despratley wanted to breastfeed, but he was too small and could not latch (4lbs). He also had a hard time keeping any food down. Anyway, he was in the NICU for 3 weeks. I had to pump every 3 hous (with a hospital grade pump), all day and even wake to pump at night (to simulate what a baby would be doing, so my body would know to preduce enough milk). I did this everyday (while at hospital and home) until we tried to breastfeed 3 weeks later, it was ok, but my nipples were sooo soar from the pump I needed a nipple sheild. But, we forged on and I had to breastfeed, then supliment with a bottle of breat milk, after every feeding to make sure the little guy was getting enough. Then I had to continue pumping to keep the demand up! All this breast milk was frozen.
By the time I brought him home I was told to feed, pump, freeze milk, clean pump, sleep...all within a 3 hour rotation. Needles to say I was getting no sleep. So within 2 weeks later I, asked my ped whether I could breastfeed exclusive and she said no, continue what I was doing. Well I couldn't anymore, I was drained. So I gave up. I had almost 2 months of milk in the freezer. Therefore my boy got breatmilk for atleast 3 months!

But, looking back I wish I would have not givin up, because after switching to formula, he had irritable bowel syndrom, and constipation problems etc. The ped had me switch formulas about 4 times.

He is 11 months now, and doing awsome! But, I hope this gave you some prospective on what it is like to breastfeed at the NICU!

My thoughts are with you if you are facing this now. Good Luck!

Answer 2

If you mean, are mothers allowed to breastfeed their infants in the NICU, in most cases yes, unless the baby needs to stay in the isolette for some reason or has delicate tubes that might be pulled out if the baby is held.

If the baby is not strong enough to nurse, most will encourage new moms to use a pump until baby is strong enough. Also, they encourage pumping between NICU visits to make sure the milk comes in and stays in...

Most NICU's encourage breastfeeding and especially "kangaroo care" which is where the baby in only a diaper is placed on a parents' (usually mom's) bare chest.

Hope this answers your question :-)

Good luck with your little one...

Answer 3

Mom will need to be pumping around every 2 hours if this is a newborn. She'll need to talk to the doctor and find out if she'll be allowed to nurse when she is with the child. There should be a pump at the hospital she can use and she may want to rent a hospital grade pump for use at home while she and baby are separated.

Answer 4

When babies are in NICU and the mother wishes to breastfeed, they need to get a breast pump and continue pumping to get the milk to come in so when the baby is able to nurse, it will be there waiting for them.

Answer 5

I breastfed my baby who was in NICU for 6 weeks. At first I just pumped and they fed it to her through an NG tube. Then we taught her to bottle feed EBM when she was stronger and she usually drank some and tubed the rest. Finally we taught her to breastfeed and she's still at it at one year.

I rented a hopital grade pump to use, it worked great.

Preemies and sick newborns need breastmilk even more than regular babies. Hospitals definately encourage it. They add human milk fortifier to it to increase calories and help small babies grow.