My daughter, Erica, had her first baby 8 days ago. She is committed to breastfeeding and they were doing fine. Erica has ample breasts and had more than enough milk except that she is both constipated and throwing up since Saturday. She hasn't been able to keep anything down, she is in constant uncomfort and pain, and is nauseous all the time.
Sunday she started developing a painful hard spot in one of her breasts. Luckily she had an appointment with a lactation counselor on Monday. The lactation specialist DID help her with the hard spot and Erica now knows exactly what to do if that happens again, so that was a plus.
The lactation guide also gave her some kind of stool softening medication which she threw up later on that day, so Tuesday we called her and she recommended milk of magnesia which was thrown up. That night we tried a liquid suppository and there was a little success but not nearly enough. Wednesday we spent 8 hours in Salem Hospital Emergency room to make sure she wasn't impacted. She wasn't. They gave her anti nausea medicine which she threw up. They think she has the flu and gave her an IV bag to rehydrate her. She asked for a second one which they gave her and wanted a third, but it was midnight and she wanted to go home more. That IV helped for a couple of days.
She has been sipping water, using Gatorade ice chips, ginger ale over ice, her husband's excellent soup broth, but everything comes back up. Thursday night she decided to force lots of liquids down so at least she wouldn't have the dry heaves and it seemed to work. Yesterday she tried forcing Ensure down. She got half a bottle down in the morning but couldn't stomach any more, but she didn't throw it up and we thought she was on the mend. She was able to drink a little more and then last night she threw everything up.
She has not had anything solid to eat since last Saturday and is loosing weight too quickly. She has been fighting as hard as she can to keep breastfeeding, but her milk supply is drying up and she is sleep deprived, listless and hopeless and the thought of spending another 8 hours in the emergency room for some more IV is impossible. Please help us hydrate her. We are at our wits end.
I am sending this message out to as many people as I can think of, so you might hear about us through other people. Thank you.