Your baby has finally arrived safely after months of ‘baking’ in the womb and hopefully a decent delivery. To your frustration though, the hard work and worry is far from over, as your baby struggles to wake and feed regularly, or latch onto the breast and feed effectively. Many mums find themselves in a difficult position as their baby gradually loses weight and becomes more yellow in colour or jaundiced.
So, what is jaundice? and how can you prevent it from taking such a hold on your baby, that you need phyto therapy to help flush it out?
When a baby is in the womb, red blood cells transport oxygen around your baby’s body. To be effective, there are many more red blood cells pumping around your baby’s body. When your baby takes his or her first breath, the lungs kick into action and take over the role of respiration and the excess red blood cells (which are no longer needed) are broken down and discarded.
When the red blood cells are broken down, a waste product called bili-rubin is produced. Bili-ribin needs to be expelled from the body, but can only do so via your baby’s bowl movements or poos. Your early milk called colostrum is a very effective laxative, so the more your baby is able to feed, the more your baby will poo and the more bili-rubin will be flushed out of the body.
What goes in, must come out right?
If you are struggling to breastfeed, for whatever reason, your baby will not be getting the laxative properties of the colostrum and if your baby is not getting food, not much will come out and the bili-rubin is re-absorbed by the body.
Now there is a catch 22 here. Your baby needs to be awake and feeding effectively to get rid of the accumulating levels of bili-rubin, but the more bili-rubin floating around your baby’s body, the more sleepy your baby becomes and the harder it is to wake him or her.
So to summarize, the more milk particularly colostrum your baby is able to access, the quicker he or she will be able to flush out the bili-rubin. If your baby is not able to get to the milk, you need to find a way to get enough fluids into him or her, to start the process and keep it going, until you are out of the woods.
How do you do this?
You take control of your situation and arm yourself with as much practical advice/information as possible before you have your baby. Please don’t rely on midwives to come to your rescue in hospital, they are simply too over stretched to give you the one to one, calm care and attention this deserves, through no fault of their own.
Join me for a workshop where I will teach you everything you need to know and do from day one, or if you live on the other side of the country, get yourself a copy of the Beginners Guide to Breastfeeding and start reading www.letsbreastfeed.com/instantonlinehelp/
Tags: breastfeeding problems, colostrum, Jaundice, tips