Friday Feature: Mother~Baby Duo

There are just some mamas who are A+ students, and Christina is definitely one of them! I have worked with Christina for many years at the hospital, and she has heard me teach moms and nurses for many years as well. She has taken all of that knowledge and has just absolutely rocked it as a mom of a surprise preemie baby. I was shocked to walk into work and see she had delivered her sweet baby boy almost 6 weeks early! Both mom and baby are doing amazing.

This little guy came into the world fast and furious and promptly got on the breast for a rock-star feeding within the first hour of birth. This is not typical of a 34-35 week baby, but he was here to prove to the world he was ready to be born. While it is not often an early baby will have such a great first feeding at the breast, when they do, you can almost always bet they will be sleepy for the next few feedings. This can be discouraging to families. But we have tools to get over this hump!

Christina took everything she knew about early babies, the required blood sugar monitoring, and the importance of hand expression and spoon feeding to help get him on the right track. After working with Christina, I would say she is pretty much an expert at hand expression. So much so she was getting spoonfuls of colostrum while the little man was showing his true preemie colors of refusing to wake up and eat. She was able to spoon feed him which not only filled his little tummy and then some, but she was also able to help him achieve a blood sugar nurses could brag about!

I asked Christina if I could share her journey of how she got off to a great start with her breastfeeding journey—even though some of those feedings were with the spoon. She was happy to share!

This is not always how the story goes with these early babies. Sometimes they require assistance in breathing in which feedings become less of a priority. Sometimes their blood sugars are difficult to maintain resulting in supplementation or IV therapy. Sometimes these babies need to be transferred to a neonatal intensive care unit. But sometimes, they do well and just need to work on feeding—as was the case with Christina and Asher. He will continue to become stronger and stronger as the weeks progress. And mama? She will have built an amazing supply with all of that hand expression! Congratulations and thanks for letting me share your beautiful story.