News Moms Need

I couldn’t believe how long my daughter’s finger nails were! She was less than a week old and desperately needed them trimmed. When she was fed and calm I got the clippers out and placed her on the changing table. Although meant for babies, the clippers were enormous compared to her. The lighting seemed OK. I picked up her delicate little hand and started with the pointer finger. I pressed her tiny finger pad away from the nail and started to cut along the curve of her finger. Then she SCREAMED! OH MY! WHAT DID I DO? She was bleeding. I nicked her precious little finger. My heart dropped. I grabbed a nearby cloth diaper and applied pressure . “I’m a horrible mother,” I thought.

Since then, I’ve been using an emery board to file her nails to the right length. I’m too scared to pick up the clippers again. I’ve been tempted to peel or bite them at times, but worry about ripping the nail too low and not being able to see what I’m doing. Filing is a bit time consuming, but at least I know she can’t get hurt this way.

Do you have any recommendations or stories to share? We can all learn from each other, so feel free to leave a comment.

Have a terrific weekend and thanks for stopping by NMN!

Do yourself and your precious little one a favor and start off on the right foot with breastfeeding. If you’ve done any reading about it then you already know that it’s “a learned skill” and “if you’re doing it properly it shouldn’t hurt.” These statements (although vague and not helpful at correcting a problem) are VERY, VERY true. It takes time, practice and help. Yes, help! Its one thing to see a diagram in a book or online, but it’s much more effective to have someone with trained hands at your bedside. You have to be in the right position. The baby has to be in the right position. There are different holds to experiment with. If you don’t get things down right from the start you and the baby could develop poor posture and latching habits. Take it from me. I’m the queen of sore, cracked, bleeding nipples. I held that title for more than two months before we got it right and it didn’t happen on its own. I spent hours on the phone with a lactation consultant. It wasn’t until I actually went to see a consultant (twice) at a nearby hospital that I had any success.

I hope the following tips help. If anyone has any other suggestions, please share!

Find a lactation consultant in your area. LLLI has leaders that host monthly meetings. Attend some before and after your baby is born.

During your tour of the hospital ask about lactation support. What days and hours does she work? Is this person a nurse? If so, is she only available during her shift? (That happened to me. When I was settled in my room and asked if they had a lactation consultant I was told, yes, but she wasn’t working again until Saturday. It was Thursday when I was admitted.)

Even if the hospital doesn’t have a lactation consultant ask the nurses for help at EVERY feeding. They’ll know what to do. Once you leave the hospital you’ll be on your own so take advantage of their knowledge and support.

Ask the staff for lots of extra pillows. Hospital pillows stink. They’re flat and plastic-y. You and the baby need to be well supported on all sides when you nurse.

Nursing in bed can be difficult. If you’re hospital room has a chair, try that. Again, support yourself with lots of pillows and use a foot stool. You need to feel “locked in” and comfortable at all times to nurse properly.

For home, have some lanolin, ibuprofen, a soft nursing bra and the number of a professional to call if you run into any problems. 

Breastfeeding is demanding when you’re caring for a newborn.  You’re exhausted. Don’t add pain to that equation. Ask for help in advance to avoid problems.

TGIF and have a great weekend. See you next Friday.

My back was bothering me  again. I sat at the kitchen table trying to  finish  a bowl of cereal, but I was too uncomfortable. I was 36 weeks pregnant and I had a horrible cold. I called in sick to work and shuffled back to bed.  I tried to fall asleep, but the pressure in my lower back wouldn’t give. I flopped from side to side. I paced around my bedroom. I rocked on my hands and knees, but my back continued to throb. I couldn’t sit still for more than a second. I called for my husband who happened to be  home  recuperating  from a substantial orthopedic surgery that he had two weeks earlier. He messaged my back while balancing on his crutches, but it did no good.

 “Don’t leave me”, I said. I was nervous and had to keep moving. He hobbled behind  me from room to room. Maybe I pinched a nerve or pulled a muscle? Let’s just call the midwife and  tell her what’s going on. She said it could just be end-of –pregnancy discomfort. Call her back if anything changes.  I wasn’t having any other symptoms. Until…very suddenly I did.

I ran to the bathroom and  threw up. The pressure in my back ramped up and radiated down into my bottom. I was moaning and walking  around on my tippy toes with my back arched. It was intense. Could this be it?  Was this labor? It came on so suddenly that we weren’t sure. I wasn’t having contractions . Everything we read said that labor progresses slowly and can take hours and hours for first time moms.  Could this be some other medical issue? My husband said, “that’s it we’re going to the hospital.” I was crying.

Somehow he managed to get me into the backset of the car although I was unable to sit. I was on my knees holding onto the head rest. We reached the stop sign at the end of our block and I jumped out of the car. I couldn’t tolerate the car. I just couldn’t do it. My husband was yelling at me, “what are you doing? Get back in the car!!” I somehow managed to crawl back in and he drove like a maniac in reverse back to our house. He whipped  into the driveway and called 911. ..To Be Continued.

Check back next Friday for Part 2 of, The day Hannah arrived. Have a great weekend and Happy Birthday Peter!

In the early days and weeks you may notice tiny whiteheads on your baby’s face, particularly on the nose and cheeks. It’s called milia and approximately 40% of newborns get it. These spots are caused when dead skin cells and secretions get trapped in pores. Fortunately, it’s not painful or contagious  and it will disappear within a few days to months without any treatment. Although tempting, don’t pop these little pimples.  It won’t  make them go away faster and it could irritate your baby’s delicate skin. Definitely no scrubbing, creams or ointments either.

It was one of the first things I noticed about my daughter after she was born. I feel badly saying that, but  I remember thinking, “oh, my poor babies skin!” Actually, I may have even said that out loud. I’ll have to ask my husband. I just wasn’t expecting her to look that way. Her precious little face was covered. If you look closely at her picture you can see it.

Have a great weekend and see you next Friday!

According to my mother in law, my husband was quite a crier as a newborn. She says that the only one who could comfort my colic hubby was his dad. I’m glad my father in law was able to soothe his crying baby. But since my hubby and I plan on having a baby one day, I hope our little one doesn’t have colic like her dad once did! Even though lots of babies may have colic, researchers still aren’t totally sure why some babies have it, and others don’t. Some babies may cry a lot because of gas or allergic reactions, but others have colic for no clear reason.

Interestingly, a large study from the Netherlands found that dads who were depressed during their baby’s time in the womb were more likely to have babies with colic. In the past, studies have found a link between mothers with depression during pregnancy and newborns with colic. But this is one of the first studies to see if there’s a relationship between a dad’s depression and his colic baby.

The study, published in this month’s Pediatrics journal, shows that the researchers made sure to find out if dads were depressed before the baby was born. This way, the researchers would know that dad’s depression wasn’t caused by baby’s excessive crying.  But it did show that if a dad was depressed before the baby was born, he was more likely to have a baby with colic. The researchers aren’t sure exactly why this is, but it’s interesting that there’s a relationship.

How did you manage a colic baby?

My name is James and I am the host of the March of Dimes community for NICU parents (www.shareyourstory.org).

In honor of Father’s Day, I have a confession. Very few people know this, but I didn’t have that BIG moment when my son took his first breaths. The nurse whisked him away quickly to clean him up. When she was done, she tried to hand him to me and I backed up a little and said “no thank you.”

Later that night when my wife finally had her room, they wheeled his little…well, I’m not sure what it was (it looked a little like a hamster cage) over to us. She picked him up and held him. It was probably a beautiful moment that I wasn’t paying attention to. Instead I looked at my watch, wondering how to gauge the appropriate length of time I needed to stay in the room without calling attention to myself. I figured 20 minutes. I lasted 17.

The next day wasn’t much better. I could have been back at the hospital by 8:30 am. I was up and ready to go, but managed to find things to do at home. I arrived at 2pm and that was because my mother-in-law doesn’t have a car and needed me to drive.

When I got there, I was terrified and ambivalent. I knew my life had changed. “Dad” was a word that I didn’t know how to wear. It was like trying on my father’s clothing. Not only that, but it was clothing that was too big for me.

I would like to, of course, report that when I did finally walk through the doorway…that it was instantly better. It would get much better as the days passed and I can say that I absolutely adore my sons and love being a father and wouldn’t go back for all of the money in the world.

That day…well, my wife handed him to me and I instantly felt weak and needed to sit. My brother took a quick picture and I briefly managed a half smile but what I was thinking was “what is the appropriate length of time I need to sit here, holding him, without causing attention to myself.” I lasted 45 seconds.

If you’re a parent or grandparent, you almost certainly heard about your newborn’s APGAR Score. But you might not know that the woman behind this acronym for evaluating a newborn’s health served as the first Medical Director of the March of Dimes, Virginia Apgar, MD. Yesterday marked what would have been Dr. Apgar’s 100th birthday. She was a leader in the field of anesthesiology and neonatology, a pioneer in medicine who completed advanced degrees in medicine and public health during a time when few women attended college. She was an accomplished world traveler, and a passionate violinist and stamp collector.

Her name is the acronym for what it measures:  Appearance, Pulse, Grimace, Activity and Respiration.  The APGAR is a test administered one and five minutes after birth to identify newborns who need emergency care. The strength of the APGAR Score is its simplicity. While the score has been refined over the past 60 years, it has rarely been improved. Originally scribbled on the back of a card in a hospital cafeteria in 1949, it is said that the score was developed “to force physicians and nurses to pay more attention to newborns” in the first critical moments of life.

Dr. Apgar used a simple message, with the right people at critical moments. And she profoundly improved the lives of babies.

To me, there’s nothing more heartbreaking than hearing a baby cry from being hurt. Whenever I’m at the doctor’s office and I hear a baby crying from an examination room down the hall, I can usually guess what happened – time for baby’s vaccine shots. Some vaccine shots are more painful than others, but they all are important in helping a baby stay healthy.

The New York Times recently reported on a study showing that it might be possible to lower a baby’s pain by switching the order of the DPTaP-Hib vaccine (diphtheria, polio, pertussis, tetanus and Haemophilus influenzae Type B) and the PCV vaccine (pneumococcal disease). Most babies receive the DPTaP-Hib and PCV vaccines during the same health visit. The study, which appeared in this month’s issue of the Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine, found that babies who got the DPTaP-Hib vaccine first experienced less pain than those that got the PCV vaccine first. The researchers found that if the PCV vaccine (the more painful of the two) was given first, the baby was more likely to focus his attention on the situation at hand, which could make him more aware of the pain and could speed up his response to the hurt he feels. In other words, a baby is already hurting from the PCV vaccine, which can make him more sensitive to the less painful DPTaP-Hib vaccine.

Keep in mind that this study is very small, so we don’t know anything for sure. But since a baby usually gets both vaccines on the same health visit, it wouldn’t hurt (no pun intended) to talk to your baby’s provider about giving the DPTaP-Hib vaccine shot first, followed by the PCV vaccine. The March of Dimes article on vaccines has more information.

Soft.  Softer than rose petals, cotton balls, cashmere sweaters, puppy ears, silk scarves and air. 

Our two-weeker’s skin looks dry and flakey, especially her feet, but I know over time it will adjust to being in her new environment.  Her eyelids are somewhat translucent and little blood vessels crisscross over them, but they will disappear from view, too.  Unlike our grandson who was born prematurely and looked like his skin was too big for him until he grew into it, this little girl’s skin seems to fit just right.   And she looks like a perfectly healthy beet when she starts to wale before a feeding.  That’s OK, she doesn’t stay red once she stops crying.

While we think she looks perfect and without a blemish, the truth is probably slightly different. (What? We’re not objective?!) Here are some things most new parents can expect, though should disappear on their own with normal washing:

• Newborn acne – red spots with yellowish centers.  These form due to surging hormones before birth.
• Milia – little white bumps that resemble whiteheads but are flat and smooth.  Actually, some of these are visible on the nose, cheeks and forehead of our beauty.  These will disappear once the baby’s oil glands and pores are more mature.
• Miliaria – This is a raised rash.  Little blisters are filled with normal skin secretions and may be clear or have a milky hue.  Again, this should disappear with normal washing.
• Erythema toxicum – These red blotches with whitish bumps in the center look a bit like flea bites, but they’re not.  They’re usually gone ten days or so after birth.
• Pustular melanosis – (sounds nasty, doesn’t it?)  These are small blisters that quickly dry up and peel away, leaving spots or  “freckle” marks.  And the spots  disappear in a couple of weeks, too.

So the skin is subject to a few fleeting flaws that usually won’t last.  And did I mention it’s soft? That’s S.O.F.T., soft!  Whisper soft.

You were pregnant for a long time.  You did all you were supposed to do with diet and exercise and everything else, and then you delivered your little treasure.  The first thing the medical staff did with your bouncing baby was administer the APGAR test and come up with a score.  Did you know anything about it at the time?  I didn’t when I had my kids.

Dr. Virginia Apgar was an anesthesiologist best known for developing the “Apgar Score,” a clinical system for evaluating the physical condition of newborns at birth. (More about this amazing woman in a future post.)  Developed in 1952, this scoring method is still used around the world today.

The Apgar score is designed to check your baby’s condition at 1 minute and 5 minutes after birth. Your baby is checked for five things:
A –  Activity; muscle tone
P  –  Pulse rate
G  – Grimace; reflex (measured by placing a bulb syringe in the baby’s nose and seeing his response)
A –  Appearance; skin color
R –  Respiration

Each category is given a score ranging from 0-2. The numbers are then added up for a final score. Babies who receive an Apgar score of 7 or more probably have come through delivery with flying colors and are in good condition. A score of less than 7 quickly indicates whether the newborn needs special observation or, perhaps, medical attention to address or prevent a serious problem. It is an accurate and very helpful tool for medical personnel.