Breastfeeding while pregnant...

[mymonstersmom]

My sister-in-law had a baby in May 2008, and in November, she found out she was pregnant again. She's still breastfeeding my nephew, but he's not gaining weight. In fact, he's losing weight. Her doctor told her it was okay to keep breastfeeding, though.
I talked her into trying formula, but he won't accept it. So our next move was to buy fruit flavored baby food and mix it in with Gerber cereal. He'll eat it, but not too much, and it's really not helping. He's not losing tremendous amounts of weight, but it's a little disheartening to learn that he lost half a pound instead of gaining weight.
He's not colicky or cranky at all. In fact, he's probably the the happiest baby I've ever seen. He smiles at everyone and is very loving. But when he's breastfeeding, he gets frustrated if there's too much noise around him and starts to cry. That tells me he's hungry, but it's hard to know what to do about it.
We've been in contact with the Le Leche League but haven't heard back. Any suggestions or advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

[Xero]

Wow I never thought about breastfeeding while pregnant. My grandma breastfed all her kids one right after another until she had another one. Like - have a baby and breastfeed. Get pregnant, stop when the other one is born. I'm not TOTALLY sure if she breastfed when pregnant though. I'll call her tomorrow and let you know because she did it four times so she'll have something to say about it for sure.

However I wouldn't encourage her to give him formula. Breast milk is by far the very best thing for him no matter what. The weight loss thing could very well be caused by something else having nothing to do with what he eats. Maybe you could encourage her to change her diet. Is she eating enough? You could google it to see what is good to eat when you're pregnant. I bet you could even google this situation. I love google. I like the idea of cereal and baby food and that, that's always a good idea. You could try and give him a bottle with breastmilk in it that has stuff like that mixed in.

I'm not totally sure, but tell her to keep breastfeeding because it really is best. I know being pregnant sucks nutrients out of your body like crazy though so I do wonder. I'm going to call my grandma tomorrow and get back to this thread. Good luck to them!!!

 

[zeitgeist]

Massive weight loss no matter what is eaten... I don't think that's a good sign in anyone. :yikes:

Doctor.

 

[fallon]

how old is he? and how much weight is he losing?

It's totally OK to BF while pregnant, a lot of women do it quite sucessfully. She just needs to make sure she's eating well and enough and drinking plenty of water.

 

[Skyburning]

She can absolutely nurse while pregnant up until the last few months her milk production may slow down or even stop to prepare colostrum for the new baby. Has he recently started crawling? I know every step towards mobility Nolan takes it gets harder to keep weight on him because he is burning more calories. Is she eating enough? She needs to be eating a lot of protein and getting plenty of fluids. If I remember right being pregnant requires you to eat about 300-500 more calories a day and nursing requires you to eat about 300 extra too so she should be getting like 2300 calories at least.

If he is crying when there is too much noise when he nurses the thing to do is to take him in a quiet dark room to nurse. I know its inconvenient to have to stop everything you're doing and go sit in the dark but if it helps its just what you've gotta do, lol.

 

[mymonstersmom]

Thanks for all the replies. My nephew is coming up on 9 months old, and he's lost a grand total of about a pound and a half. The problem is, he doesn't really seem to have gained all that much since birth.
Also, I forgot to mention that my sister-in-law is a vegetarian, which I don't think is a good thing for her while she's nursing or while she's pregnant, much less doing both. But again, he doc tells her it's fine. She eats good, but she says that she craves sand, which tells me she has some kind of deficiency. I asked her if she brought it up to her doctor, and she told me no.
I apologize for posting this thread without more information. I just feel so worried about my nephew, and so does my husband. My brother-in-law and sister-in-law are fairly young, but I wouldn't dare question their judgement. But I definitely express my angst about my nephew's weight loss.
A little more info: He spends a lot of time in his swing, but he's learning how to get out of it, and he does crawl. In fact, he climbs up on the back of the couch and tries to suspend himself from the pictures and such. He's a very adventurous baby who loves to challenge and yell at the vacuum cleaner when his mom or his aunty have it out.

 

[Xero]

I couldn't get ahold of my grandma today. D: I'll try again tomorrow.

How much does he weigh? And also how long is he? That would help us get an idea of how he's doing. Yeah it would be hard to get what you need when you're a vegetarian, that's not the best idea but what can you say to a vegetarian you know? It would be enough for me just to learn that it would help my babies thrive, but whatever. Oh! Also, she needs iron if she's craving sand. Is she taking her prenatal vitimins? Those would do her a world of good and could really help her out in this. I'm no doctor but on top of that if it's bad enough she should probably take an extra iron vitimin and a vitimin C along with it, which helps your body process and use iron. I had to do all of that due to anemia (lack of iron) while I was pregnant. On top of that I craved cereal like crazy, which has a lot of iron in it. Tell her to look into some iron-packed cereal. There's a lot out there and that's a tasty and meat free way to keep up with it. It's really really important for her to be eating right and taking her vitimins when she's pregnant and/or breastfeeding. If not for her, for the babies. I can't stand to see a skinny baby it just breaks my heart.

 

[fallon]

a veg diet is OK as long as she's making sure to get plenty of protein. I also second what Xero says about the sand, she should be taking her pre-nats but if she's not she needs an iron sup for sure and I would erge her to bring that up with her doc. As for losing a pound, if he's becoming more active and mobile I wouldn't worry to much about a pound. Once they start moving that baby fat seems to melt right off. My advice would be to montior the babies growth as well as his urine out put. If he's having plenty of wet diapers and having a BM at least every other day I think thing will be just fine. Your sister needs to follow her bodies ques as well, it will know exactly what she and the babies need

 

[Skyburning]

Her being a vegetarian is fine. Does she eat dairy? or is she vegan (no meat or dairy) Either one is fine it would just help me make more recommendations if I knew which.

To get protein she can eat beans, soy, nuts like almonds-walnuts-and cashews, brussel sprouts, spinach (other dark leafy veggies too), etc.

As far as wanting to eat sand, that's called PICA and it is usually an iron deficiency. Broccoli is actually one of the best things you can eat because it has iron and Vit. C which causes the iron to be more easily absorbed. She could take iron pills and follow them with a glass of orange juice but I'm going to caution against that without the advice of a doctor because you can have too much iron. Most of the recommendations I made for protein apply to iron also. Beans and nuts are great sources of iron.

Fallon is right. Babies diapers are very telling. At nine months he should be having 5-6 wet diapers a day and preferably a stool daily but since he is breastfeeding he might not. Although at this point she should introduce solid foods to him if she hasn't already and solid foods will increase the amount of bowel movements he has.

A pound and a half honestly doesn't sound like a lot to me if he is active. But again, it would help a lot to know an exact weight and height. My one year old lost half a pound in 2 months and I feed him so much it's ridiculous. He is just starting to get around a lot more and is burning more calories now.

HTH!

 

[fallon]

Great advice as usual Sky

 

[16th ave.]

something that keeps coming to mind when i read the initial post is that there could potentially be a problem with the intestinal tract which is could be causeing the probs. with weight gain and just maybe the docs haven't figured this out yet.

has the baby been seen by a different doc? a second opinion might help...
as for the advice everyone has given---i agree. she needs vitamins.
aint a worldly person, but i have never heard of breastfeeding one child while pregnant with another being a problem..but i don't know.
she should talk to her ob/gyn and the pediatrician to be certain its ok to do both at the same time.... all three need the nutrition right now. its too important not to be getting it.

 

[Nes]

I'm going to first of all agree with 16th ave. Don't go all hypochondriac but it may be a good idea to get the babe checked out.

As for the weight gain, I wouldn't worry about 1/2 lb too much - even though it's discouraging. For most of his life Lucas has been a bean-pole (until the last month when he finally started putting on weight). Just because he's so active.

Maybe the little guy is just going thru a growth spurt?