Underweight - not cool in babies

Have you ever heard of couples moving in together and then going through this progression: buying a plant, buying several plants, buying a puppy, and then finally having a baby?  You start off with owning a plant to see how well you'd do as a caregiver.  If you're able to keep the plants alive, you're ready to own a pet.  If you're able to fulfill the emotional and physical needs of the pet, then maybe you might be ready for a baby.  I went through the same process.  I started off with plants.  Lots of them.  Whenever I over- or under-watered any of them and they would die, my heart would break for the poor plants and I would beat myself up over my inability to nurture.   Good thing this hasn't happened with my doggies.

Now, for the first time, I feel the same inability as a mother.  About a week and a half ago, at Desmond's 4 month checkup, we were told by our pediatrician that although he was meeting all the developmental milestones AHEAD of time and even though he was "brilliant" (his words, not ours...honest), he was underweight.  When he pulled out the weight projection chart, it showed Desmond to be in the 1 percentile of weight, 35 percentile of height.  My heart sank to my stomach.  I felt horrible.  It was difficult to keep the tears in and once we got to the car, the enormity of the situation settled in.  My child has been hungry the past 2 months.  I felt horrible and felt inadequate as a mother.  I desperately wished that I was struggling with my issues of oversupply as I had been a few months ago and not with issues of undersupply.

The root of the problem is that Desmond is a smart little guy.  As soon as other people started feeding him from the bottle (the flow from the bottle is a lot faster than from a real nipple), he started latching onto my breast, drinking whatever milk was hanging out down closest to my nipple and then he would latch off as soon as the milk flow lessened or stopped.  He wouldn't keep sucking in order to allow for another letdown.  This is the important part: the second, third, so on let downs contain the higher fat content milk, the hindmilk, that keeps babies satiated and gives them all those fat rolls.  Desmond was getting none of that.  As soon as he would latch off, I'd give him my other breast and we'd go through the entire process again with the end result of him crying his eyes out and me too stressed out to achieve another letdown.

I previously wrote about what I did to increase my milk supply (hospital-grade pump, fenugreek, mother's milk tea, etc).  For a week or so, I stayed at home and canceled all of my meetings at school.  I hung out with Desmond and fed him whenever he wanted and pumped after that.  Feed and pump, feed and pump.  I was an emotional wreck: my nipples were sore from all the feedings and pumpings; whenever I did pump, I was only able to pump 1-2 oz TOTAL (this is after about 15 minutes pumping); and I felt that Desmond was still hungry.  I would feed him and then give him a bottle with 2-3 precious ounces of my pumped milk afterwards.  Sometimes he would be satisfied with that; other times, he would finish the bottle and want more.  I didn't know what else to do.

So, I reached out to my wonderful SIL, Melanie.  Melanie's son, Nico, my nephew, was born 2.5 weeks after Desmond, so they are around the same developmental stage.  Nico definitely gets enough to eat from Melanie...she's got a freezer filled with milk that she's pumped.  I told her about my situation and she offered to give me a few bags of her milk.  I went home with 8 bags!!!  I was ecstatic!  I could use these to supplement Desmond's feedings. 

I would start off with one bag whenever I felt Desmond needed more and supplement him throughout the day.  Desmond KNEW that this was not his mother's milk.  As soon as he tasted Melanie's milk, he would make a "what the..." face, suck tentatively, and then rip into the bottle.  He had some weird, watery poops for a while after we introduced her milk, but now they're back to normal.  Fascinating how a baby's body just knows stuff and can adapt.

I know that many people reading this would balk at the idea of giving another person's milk to your baby.  I'll admit that 2 years ago, I would've been making the same face you are now.  But, the more I educated myself about breastfeeding, the more I realized that it is one of the best things that I could do for Desmond.  The WHO recommends that all babies be exclusively breastfed for at least 6 months and that mother's milk from the breast is the best, followed by mother's own expressed milk, other human milk, and finally formula.  Many may worry about the passage of diseases (like HIV/AIDS) through breastmilk, and although it is a valid worry, I know and trust my SIL.  Milk banks take each donation of milk and heat it enough to make sure that any pathogens are killed off.  (On a side note: global health professionals even recommend that HIV-positive women in developing countries breastfeed their children instead of giving them supplementary food (formula, local food) because 1) risk of transmission per month of breastfeeding is low (~1%) and 2) introducing things other than breastmilk before 6 months can damage the gastric and intestinal wall, making passage of HIV easier if breastfeeding and if not breastfeeding, can increase the risk of diarrhea and other illnesses that carry higher risk of mortality than the risk of acquiring HIV.  Source.)

Yesterday, we visited the pediatrician so that he could weigh Desmond and look him over. We took off all of his clothes except his diaper and walked him over to the scale.  I gingerly placed him on it, my heart thumping in my chest.  I wanted to close my eyes and look away from the readout, but I couldn't.  It beeped and my heart stopped.  11lb 7oz.  I quickly did the math in my head (but not quickly enough...Billy blurted out, "9 oz!")  I let out the biggest whoop and jumped around the nursing station at the pediatrician's office in joy.  He grew!  My hard work paid off!   And I couldn't have done it without the help from Melanie.  Thanks so much, Melanie!  You are a lifesaver!  Literally.

I just ordered a supplemental nursing system (SNS) to wear when I'm feeding Desmond.  Basically, it's a little pouch with a tube attached to it that you place right next to your nipple.  When the baby starts feeding, he'll be feeding from you but getting extra milk from the pouch.  Genius.  I'll let you all know how it goes.  My goal is to keep his weight increase at 9 oz per week (we'll go each week into the pediatrician's office to weigh him.  It's free.) until he gets to a target weight of about 14.8 lbs.

See?  He's growing a double chin!  By he, I mean Desmond.  Pirate has like 8 chins.

Just for shits and giggles, here's a video of Desmond when he weighed 9oz less than now (you can tell his face is a lot thinner) and after he had his first meal of his auntie Melanie's milk.