Breastfeeding and Jaundice

There are some doctors who believe that there is something they have not yet found in mother’s milk that causes higher levels of bilrubin to stay in the blood that causes jaundice and have termed that type of jaundice as “breast milk jaundice”. Breast milk jaundice is usually diagnosed after the first week of life and can last up to 2-3 months, but mostly peaks at 10-21 days.

Although some pediatricians will call your baby’s jaundice “breast milk jaundice”, there hasn’t been any proof that it really exists, but just a theory. Even the thought that something is “bad” in your breast milk can cause many moms to doubt themselves, but please remember breastfeeding is natural and it is highly unlikely you or your milk are causing any problems. Of course, I’m not a doctor, so take Dr. Sears’ advice on the subject, too.

Breast milk jaundice remedies

The important thing about jaundice is to decrease the amount of bilrubin in your baby’s blood. The best way to do that is to encourage a lot of urination and elimination. That is one reason why breastfeeding more often rather than less can be a good remedy to breast milk jaundice. When your baby is not getting enough milk, she won’t be having enough wet or dirty diapers. It may be a good idea to track the number of diapers each day, which is the best indicator of whether she is getting enough.

Work with your pediatrician on the course of action to remedy the jaundice as some higher levels of bilrubin require phototherapy lights. If your pediatrician recommends formula supplements, you probably want to work with a lactation consultant on alternative feeding methods to avoid nipple confusion. You can also pump so you have expressed breast milk to feed your baby. Keeping track of pumping sessions will help you find a pattern as to the best time to pump during the day and help you keep track of your supply, especially at different times per day. When I was pumping I’d always get most in the morning and very little around dinnertime. This is true for many mothers.

Worry can affect your milk supply, so try not to let the diagnosis of breast milk jaundice get you down. In most cases, it’s nothing to worry about. If your supply is suffering, you may be interested in ways to increase your milk supply.

Sources:
Kelly Mom
Dr. Sears

Originally published on Entrepremusings.com

I am honored that Aruni has asked me to do a guest post. As a “seasoned” mother of four, the Baby Tips category is right up my alley and a hard one to pare down (I have accumulated a lot of advice over the years – 11 to be exact!). In later years, when our other children were ready to start solid foods, we were much better prepared. By being slow and meticulous we were finally able to have fun with the introduction of solid foods.The key to our success is what we called a Baby Food Journal.

When our babies were around six months of age, and we made the decision to start the solid food phase, the journaling would begin.

Everyday, I would record the time of feeding, the amount, and the babies reaction to the taste (this one was for fun).

After the feeding, I would make notes of any unusual observations and the time they occurred. These would include skin rashes, health issues, upset stomach, gassiness, or general fussiness.

The next day the process would be repeated. If the food seemed to agree with the baby then it was time to increase the amount and again record my observations. If I saw an unusual reaction a call the pediatrician would be in order. And if I was unsure whether the reaction was indeed caused by the food, something like fussiness for example, then I would feed the baby a small quantity of the same food and watch for a repeat reaction.

Only introducing one new food per week in the first few months of starting solids was my rule. If things were going well I would reduce the time between new foods to three or four days.

Keeping a Baby Food Journal took a lot of stress and uncertainty out of the feeding process. And it was good documentation to give the pediatrician if things weren’t going well.

*photos used in this post by belgianchocolate and joeltelling, respectively

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Check out Neena’s blog. She has a lot of great things to share…with 4 kids she knows more than most of us about raising kids! Since her kids are older she never had the opportunity to use Babble Soft applications and she told me that when she was writing this guest tip, it crossed her mind that Baby Insights might help people keep track of solid feeding. We will be adding that feature in the future but interestingly our families often use the Medicine Dose pages to keep track of baby’s and/or mom’s food intake to discern patterns in baby’s reaction to foods or breast milk. Go figure. Our families are so awesome and so creative!

Note to new readers: these tips are based on our experiences, as well as those of our friends and readers. Please always consult with your doctor before implementing any tip that might impact the health of your baby. If you have a tip you’d like to submit please send an email to blogger at babblesoft dot com for possible inclusion. Please check the ‘baby tips’ category to make sure your tip (in some form or fashion) hasn’t already been posted. If it has been, feel free to comment on that post and support the tip. We also welcome respectful challenges to the tips because as is noted in our inaugural baby tip ‘everything is relative!’ We will, of course, give anyone who submits a tip we publish credit and a link back to their site!

Definition of Jaundice

Bilrubin is a waste product that comes from your body’s red blood cells when they are old and destroyed by your body. Bilrubin is the chemical that is left in your body after iron is removed from your blood. When you have too much bilrubin in your body, your skin and whites of the eyes appear yellow in color. They call the yellow staining of your skin “jaundice”.

Why does Jaundice occur?

Your liver is responsible for filtering out waste in your blood and jaundice occurs when there is too much bilrubin in your body for your liver to filter out. The reason jaundice is so common in babies is because in the first few days of being born, a baby’s body will rapidly start replacing fetal Hemoglobin (the chemical in blood that carries oxygen) with adult Hemoglobin. At the same time, your baby’s liver is immature and can’t keep up with all of the bilrubin being put into the blood from the Hemoglobin replacement. This increases the level of bilrubin in your baby’s body and causes jaundice.

Diagnosis of Jaundice

If you notice your baby’s skin is yellow, you should call the doctor right away. Although jaundice is very common in newborns, it should be treated as high levels of bilrubin can be dangerous. Your doctor can do a blood test to test the levels of bilrubin your baby’s blood.

Treatment of Jaundice

If bilrubin levels are low enough, no treatment is necessary. Sometimes your doctor will simply tell you to feed more often to help get the bilrubin levels lower. You may want to track your baby’s diapers to make sure he has enough wet and dirty diapers. It is usually unnecessary to supplement with water or anything else if levels are low enough and it is usually unnecessary to stop breastfeeding for a day or two.

If bilrubin levels are too high, your doctor may use special phototherapy lights or special blankets to help break down the bilrubin. Work with your doctor on this as it can be dangerous for your baby to have too high of levels in her blood.

Jaundice will usually pass within a week of your baby’s life, two at the most, in the majority of cases.

Sources and more reading:
MedicineNet.com
Dr. Sears – Breastfeeding a Newborn With Jaundice

My mom recently sent me my baby album book because she moved from a larger house to a smaller apartment with my eldest brother and my niece (12) and nephew (9), and she just didn’t have the room for the extras. It was fun to look through it, even though it was only partially filled in (I am the fourth of five kids you know). The most interesting thing was how heavy I was at 6 months old! I was close to 20 pounds and it is very ironic because now that I’m an adult, I am only 5′ 3″, so fairly short (I won’t share my weight now after 2 kids haha). My youngest son (now almost 16 months), was also big and chunky at 6 months, but has thinned out now that he’s started moving around. I’ll be curious if he ends up like me (on the short side) or my hubby (on the tall side).

The baby album book was soooo old, warped, and stained. It sort of gave it a nostalgic feel, but now this baby book was now in my hands and now it’s in a box in a closet. I have two baby album books for my two sons, partially filled in, but to receive mine in the mail made me think about how baby album books are so different now in the internet age.

Baby Album Books in my mom’s age

Although it’s nice to be able to flip through my baby album, it took up space in my mom’s apartment and now in a box in my closet. I hate to throw it away and love the idea of keeping it, but how long do I expect this book to last before it falls apart? Do I expect my kids and grandkids to keep it, too?

Baby album books in my mom’s age also go against the current Green Movement with all of the trees needed to make the books. Given there are over 12,000 babies born a day in the U.S. alone, I guess we can estimate a baby album book in my mom’s age to be made out of 2% of a tree, so we can estimate if all the babies born in one day in the U.S. had a baby book, it would use up about 240 trees or 2,880 per year. That’s not such a good thing.

Finally, baby albums in my mom’s age can be embarrassing to share. You have to whip it out at the birthday party or heaven forbid at your wedding. Exactly, when is a good time to take the baby album book out, anyway?

Baby Album Books in the Internet Age

In the age of Facebook and MySpace, sharing photos is so easy. You can snap a picture of your baby and show your friends and family (who may not live close to you) the first time she rolled over or her first smile. No longer do you have to feel bad about showing them the 100th picture. You upload it and when it’s convenient your loved ones will look, comment, and smile. The only drawback to that is they are not all in one location just for your baby’s “baby book”.

My husband has also been working on our Family Tree for over 2 years. He is researching way back and it’s become quite a challenge for him. It is way more involved than adding father, mother, grandparents like my boys’ baby book. When he’s done, they’ll have a family forest, not a family tree!

If you are the organized type like me, you appreciate having an online baby album book where you can have all your baby’s milestones plus pictures all in one place and can add captions, e-mail it to loved ones and even include how many diapers he was going through, whether he was sleeping through the night plus how much he was eating at the time without any additional effort. I wonder how much I was eating to be 20 pounds when I was 6 months old! I know my mom breastfed me, but I’m not sure if I was eating solids by then given it was more accepted way back then. We now know it’s recommended not to start solids until sometime between 4 and 6 months. With my son, I know for sure he was only getting breast milk and yet grew much faster than his older brother.

Whether you have a baby album book from your mom’s age or the internet age, it’s fun to keep track of all your baby’s milestones with pictures. Since I now download all of my pictures to my computer, it definitely makes more sense for me to have a baby album in the internet age. I have printed some pictures, but mostly they just sit around. I love e-mailing my family and friends pictures and it’s a lot easier, doesn’t use up any trees, keeps my embarrassment low, and doesn’t clutter people’s homes (just their inboxes if they don’t hit delete).

What kind of baby album book do you have?

This article will outline how much sleep we can expect our babies and toddlers to get at various ages. If our expectations are too high, we could be trying to put our children to sleep too often and it will become frustrating for everyone. If our expectations are too low, we might not put our children to sleep often enough, they may become overtired and irritable, making sleep more difficult for them, and it will become frustrating for everyone.

How much sleep does your child get now?

The first step you should take is to log your child’s sleep for a week to get an average number of sleep hours in 24 hours and take note how much of it is during the day and how much at night. Only count times they are actually asleep (or quiet if you’re not sure), not when you tried to get them to sleep.

Some children are very consistent and you can almost set a clock by them, while others are very inconsistent taking different length naps at different times and waking up at a different time each morning. We’ll talk about how to regulate that a bit in a different post, but one thing is for certain and that’s the average amount of sleep in 24 hours stays relatively constant. However, children can and will move sleep from day to night, and vice versa, fairly easily.

How much sleep can you expect from your baby or toddler?

Below is an outline of the average sleeper. By definition, this means some will be on the lower end of sleep needs and some on the higher end. However, it is generally accepted that most babies and toddlers under 2 years old will not need less than 10 hours of sleep at night to be the optimum restoration for their little bodies.

• 6 months and younger: 11-12 hours night, 3-4 hours day in 3-4 naps.
• 6 to 9 months: 11-12 hours night, 2-3 hours day in 2-3 naps
• 9 to 18 months: 11-12 hours night, 2-3 hours day in 1-2 naps
• 18 months to 3 years: 10-12 hours, 1 nap
• 3 to 5 years: 10-11 hours, sometimes 1 nap (most lose between 3 & 4)
• 5 years+: 9-10 hours, no nap

These are just general guidelines. My toddler was still napping at just past two, but then started going to sleep too late at night (9 or 10pm), so we dropped his nap for him, early, to get more night sleep and he started sleeping 12-13 hours at night. Note: I do not recommend dropping the last nap unless absolutely necessary. This was just an example. Combining the averages with your sleep log gives you a starting point in establishing healthy sleep habits. If your child is getting far less than the averages, you will need to take a long, hard look at the reason and determine if it’s healthy or not. Please also review the reasons children need to get enough sleep.

This article is about when a baby can sleep with a pillow. When should you give a pillow to your baby? When can you give a pillow to your baby? What kind of pillow do you give your baby? What type of pillows can help with co-sleeping? What type of pillows can help with nursing?

When can you give your baby a pillow to sleep on?

The NICHHD recommends that you avoid pillows for babies under one year of age. They recommend never to place baby on a pillow to sleep or add pillows to the crib, either. This is to reduce the risk of SIDS. Here are other ways to reduce the risk of SIDS.

When should you give your baby a pillow to sleep?

There is no rule about needing to give your baby a pillow to sleep on. Yes, it’s more comfortable for us, adults, to sleep on a pillow. After all, it is one of our sleep associations. And, because we are bigger, a proper pillow supports our neck in such a way that our bodies can fully relax at night. Buy the wrong pillow and you can wake up with a cramped neck.

But, children are smaller and the wrong pillow when they are too young can be a bad idea. Not only can it increase the SIDS risk as I mentioned above, but baby can roll off if it doesn’t have side support. If baby is old enough to move around and the pillow is too large, the pillow might move on top of baby, making it dangerous for him. In addition, if your baby is pulling up, he can use the pillow as a launchpad out of the crib. No one wants that! He might be climbing out soon enough on his own. No need to give him props.

Therefore, I recommend avoiding a pillow for your baby until she is well into being a toddler over 2 years old. And, if she is content not to use a pillow at all, don’t even worry about it. My eldest son didn’t care to sleep on a pillow until he was close to 2 1/2 and then we gave him a very flat pillow.

What kind of pillow can you give your baby for sleep?

If you are going to give your baby or toddler a pillow to sleep on, make sure it’s small and flat such that it will be better for her neck support. They make small pillows just for babies. Here are just a few:

• For babies who need to be at an incline (e.g. those with reflux), you can try this wedge pillow. It safely keeps baby at an incline.
• For help positioning younger babies on their back (also guards against SIDS), I used the Close & Secure Sleeper, but for something more inexpensive, you can try a Head-N-Back Sleep Positioner. These positioners also help with co-sleeping.
• You can buy toddler pillows like Mr. Bobbles’ Blankets pillows or sets that come with a pillow. They also have these cool travel neck pillows, now.

Baby Nursing Pillows

Using a pillow while nursing is a life-saver! It saves your wrist with support and makes it so much easier in those early days. When baby is older and can support his own head, it helps to have your hands free, especially if you have a toddler. I used to read to one and nurse the other.

I used a Boppy for both of my children, but I saw this Leachco Cuddle-U Nursing Pillow and thought it looked really cool and the reviews were really good! I have also heard good things about the My Brest Friend Pillow.

It can be tempting to try a pillow when you are struggling with getting your baby to sleep through the night, but don’t risk it when it comes to her safety if she is too young.

When did you start using a baby sleep pillow? Which one?

To say thank you to all the other hard-working parents (is there another kind?), we are offering 15% off any Babble Soft subscription! Go to the Purchase Page and enter MOTHER#1 between now and May 10, 2009.

And, don’t miss your chance to win a FREE three-month subscription to Babble Soft, gift cards at Amazon, or FREE baby sleep consultations to help you with your sleep struggles! It takes 10 seconds, so enter now!.

Good luck and Happy Mother’s Day!!

Well-meaning lactation consultants and nurses told me repeatedly that I shouldn’t supplement.   I felt guilty (ugh!) about doing it, but I had to and I’m glad I did.  A few weeks later once my milk was in we no longer needed to supplement.  When my daughter was born, I had no qualms about supplementing the first couple of weeks of her life because I knew with certainty she would breastfeed exclusively and it gave me some time to recover a bit faster.  This time my milk came in within 3 to 5 days.  So here are some ideas from my experience and my cousin’s:

Fenugreek. This seed is commonly used in pill form to increase milk supply.  Fortunately for me, it is often used in Sri Lankan and Indian cooking and since my mom was here the first couple of weeks my kids were born I got to eat lots of tasty curries cooked with fenugreek.  I’m convinced this is what helped bring my milk in faster.  I’ll never know for certain but it was a yummy endeavor nonetheless!

Dark beer.  My cousin was advised to drink dark beer to help increase her supply.  We were both discussing how it was too bad that she wasn’t advised to drink a lot of red wine…which we both love.

Garlic.  I also ate a little more garlic than normal in the curries my mother made, but I have heard that some people will eat so much that their milk starts smelling like garlic!  They say that babies like the flavor/smell of garlic in their mother’s milk so they suck harder and eat more.  Go figure!

Whole grains/Oatmeal.  I’m not sure how this works but it’s probably related to why dark beer is helpful.

Rest. Sleep. Warm Showers.  Although it’s very hard to get any rest those first several weeks home, it’s probably what the body needs most to help stimulate milk production.  When you sleep, relax, and rest your body has time to make milk without added stress.  Stress has been shown to decrease milk supply because your body is using it’s energy for things other than making milk!

Aruni
Founder, Babble Soft

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These tips are based on our experiences, as well as those of our friends and readers.  Please always consult with your doctor before implementing any tip that might impact the health of your baby.  If you have a tip you’d like to submit please send an email to blogger(at)babblesoft(dot)com.  Please check the ‘baby tips’ or ‘baby advice’ categories to make sure your tip (in some form or fashion) hasn’t already been posted.  If it has been, feel free to comment on that post and support the tip.  We also welcome respectful challenges to the tips because ‘everything is relative!’  We will, of course, give anyone who submits a tip we publish credit and a link back to their site!

You’d think we would remember the fine art of swaddling after having our first but with 2 1/2 years between them we had to re-learn the technique.  After a few months, they would break loose because they did not want to be swaddled anymore.  Parents.com has some nice illustrations on how to swaddle your baby using The Quick Wrap or The Burrito Roll style.  If you are looking for some great blankets to swaddle your baby in, check out Mr. Bobbles’ Blankets! 

 Our daughter with a professional nurse swaddle a day or so after she was born:

Our daughter in her co-sleeper at home with a not-so-professional swaddle. We called her the one armed sleeping bandit. 

Aruni
Founder, Babble Soft

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These tips are based on our experiences, as well as those of our friends and readers.  Please always consult with your doctor before implementing any tip that might impact the health of your baby.  If you have a tip you’d like to submit please send an email to blogger(at)babblesoft(dot)com.  Please check the ‘baby tips’ or ‘baby advice’ categories to make sure your tip (in some form or fashion) hasn’t already been posted.  If it has been, feel free to comment on that post and support the tip.  We also welcome respectful challenges to the tips because ‘everything is relative!’  We will, of course, give anyone who submits a tip we publish credit and a link back to their site!

Of course it’s not that easy to take a boppy with you when you are breastfeeding/nursing-in-public so on those occassions I propped them on our big, fat diaper bag because I always had it handy.

If you can’t afford another boppy, try to find a really sturdy/hard cushion that you can place under the boppy for the football position.  You’d have to find two slightly firm cushions if you want to use them for the cradle and cross-cradle positions.  You can also ask a friend if they are done with their boppy…I just gave one of ours away to a friend.  We also used our boppy for tummy time, sitting support, and all sorts of fun things that I’m sure you are not supposed to use it for.

Aruni
Founder, Babble Soft

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These tips are based on our experiences, as well as those of our friends and readers.  Please always consult with your doctor before implementing any tip that might impact the health of your baby.  If you have a tip you’d like to submit please send an email to blogger(at)babblesoft(dot)com.  Please check the ‘baby tips’ or ‘baby advice’ categories to make sure your tip (in some form or fashion) hasn’t already been posted.  If it has been, feel free to comment on that post and support the tip.  We also welcome respectful challenges to the tips because ‘everything is relative!’  We will, of course, give anyone who submits a tip we publish credit and a link back to their site!