Weight Loss C

Infant Feeding

Download the leaflet

Weight Loss C (294kB pdf)

Introduction

This leaflet aims to give you general information about weight loss in the first few days of life and provide you with some support and guidance on how to help your baby gain weight.

Baby ……………………………. weighs …………..KG

      So has lost >12.5% of their birth weight

Why has my baby lost weight?

It is normal for healthy newborn babies to lose weight after birth and then regain it within a couple of weeks.  Sometimes they lose a bit more than we would like and your midwife/GP has referred you to us to check everything is ok. This may be worrying for you, but we are here to support you and your baby and get you back home as soon as possible.

Whilst in hospital the clinicians will have taken a thorough history and examined your baby to ensure they are safe to be discharged home. We are happy for you to go home but would like you to do the following things to help make sure your baby doesn’t lose any more weight. Here are some links to help you.

• Hand expressing
• Position and attachment
• Breast compressions
• Paced bottle feeding

Plan

• Contact your midwife and arrange a visit for a follow up weight and review in 48 hours. Our community nursing team will come and check on your baby tomorrow but they are not specialist feeding advisors so you must arrange for your midwife to visit in 48 hours

•  Aim to express your breast milk post feed and give any milk via bottle. You can either give this after each breastfeed or you can split the volume over the day into fewer feeds eg. 2-3 bottles per day. Make sure you pace feed your baby the bottle.  If is important that you give the volume below so if you do not manage to express anything or you prefer not to express then you will need to give some infant formula.

• Aim for ______mls over a 24 hour period. This works out ________ mls every 3 hours but it doesn’t matter if this changes every feed as long as your baby gets the full 24 volume.

• Ensure your baby breastfeeds effectively at least 8 times in 24 hours

• You may need to ‘switch’ feed if your baby is sleepy (change breasts to wake baby up)

• Consider doing breast compressions to help transfer your milk to your baby         

• Try to avoid dummy use as this can interfere with feeding cues

•Your midwife will want to see how well feeding is going.  It may be useful to keep a log of how well your baby breastfed, how much you express, how much feed your baby takes via bottle and how many wet and dirty nappies you change!

• Enjoy lots of skin to skin contact and cuddles!

Peer support

Peer support can be really helpful when you and your baby are learning what to do. Here are the details of local peer support who can help you.

Liverpool Community Bambis – 0151 233 6874 or 07545200318

Seton Feel Good Factory – 0151 291 8010

Knowsley Bosom Buddies – 0151 244 3269

When should I bring my baby back to hospital?

You will be supported by your community midwife or health visitor but if you are concerned that your baby is unwell, eg having less wet and dirty nappies, irritable, lethargic, reduced feeding, then bring them back to the emergency department. 

This leaflet only gives general information. You must always discuss the individual treatment of your child with the appropriate member of staff. Do not rely on this leaflet alone for information about your child’s treatment.

This information can be made available in other languages and formats if requested.

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