Sister Lilian’s Babycare Companion: Complimentary and traditional care. Lilian Paramor
ring to reduce pressure on your perineum.
•After a Caesar, interlace your fingers and support your wound when coughing, laughing or moving to reduce discomfort.
DAY TWO
Baby will still be quiet today and you will feel tired, but deep sleep might continue to elude you. If you had your baby in a maternity clinic and are feeling well, you might even go home today. Daunting as this prospect may be, one often feels more relaxed at home and recovery and adjustment are easier. Wherever you are, take things slowly today. Baby focuses at about 25 to 30 cm, the perfect distance between being cradled at your breast and your face. He will still lie tightly curled and feel one with his environment, not sure where he ends and his mom or the world begins.
About Baby
•Clean Baby’s navel at each nappy change to prevent infection – use calendula lotion or surgical spirits on cotton wool and clean the clamp, the length of the cord and around the base. The cord will gradually dry and then you should clean the crevices of the navel with a cotton bud dipped in calendula.
•Baby may become a bit jaundiced today or tomorrow. If the bilirubin (yellow pigment) levels are very high, you might be advised to have phototherapy treatment in which your baby’s eyes are closed and her body is exposed to ultraviolet light, which breaks down the bilirubin more quickly. Feed Baby more frequently from the breast, as she becomes tired under the heat and sucks less. She will need plenty of fluids to help wash out the bilirubin. Exposing Baby to sunlight for five to ten minutes while protecting the eyes also works very well. This type of jaundice is not dangerous and can be treated at home, either under hired lights (with the help of a private midwife) or in the sun. Some clinics use wrap-around body light devices which is far better, or more desirable, and Baby is easier to handle.
•If your baby is in need of special care you will feel quite sad today. Spend as much time as you can in the nursery or high-care unit and massage Baby’s feet and hands, or simply place your hand on his tummy. Speak and hum too.
•Nursing will be much the same as the first day: don’t restrict feeds, ensure correct latching and simply enjoy the experience.
•Handling Baby will be a little easier but do not worry if you still feel more thumbs than fingers.
Tips for Mom
•If your nipples are tender ask for help with latching. You can moisten a rooibos teabag with two teaspoons of boiling water, cool and place over the sore nipple to ease the pain – wear inside your breastpad until the next feed.
•Add a handful of coarse salt to your bath water today to protect against infection of the perineum.
•Wrap an icepack in a facecloth and place against your perineum to reduce swelling and pain.
•Continue with Rescue Birth & Recovery and Arnica D6 tablets but take three-hourly while awake.
•If your bowels do not move spontaneously, use a glycerine suppository today. After insertion into the anus, ignore the initial urge this causes, lie down and wait for ten to fifteen minutes to allow the suppository to dissolve. If you go to the loo immediately, the suppository will not have had time to melt.
DAY THREE
This is often the day reality hits home, tiredness strikes with a vengeance, your milk comes in and Baby wakes up and finds a voice. The ‘Third-day Blues’ is well known and will usually pass once you’ve had a good sleep, your hormones have stabilised and you have given vent to your emotions. If you had a good natural, active birth experience, you might feel physically well today. Your breasts will be tender but if you follow all the tips of the past days, they will not become engorged and excessively painful.
Tips to help with Baby
•Baby might splutter and choke as your milk comes in faster now. Simply let him come up for breath when necessary. Positing a bit of milk after a feed is quite normal and usually looks more than it is.
•Continue to feed as frequently as Baby needs today as this will help empty your breasts effectively. Do not time feeds or feed according to a schedule.
•If your breasts are too firm for Baby to suck from, warm them and express a little milk until the area around the nipples and areola is softer.
•You now need to wind Baby after a feed. Try one of these methods:
•Hold her over your shoulder and pat her back.
•Carry her in a baby sling after a feed.
•Hold her over your forearm facing forward with slight pressure on the tummy.
•Lay her over your lap with one leg raised so that her head is higher than her buttocks and pat her back.
•Sit her on your lap with her chin resting between your index finger and thumb and raising her left arm while pushing upwards on her back.
•If Baby has not broken wind within five to ten minutes, don’t bother to continue. Any burps later are not related to that feed.
Tips for Mom
•If you feel very emotional, take Rescue Emotion or the tissue salt Nat mur.
•If you had stitches they might be pulling tight. Exposing the area to the sun will dry, heal and soothe.
•Continue with Rescue Birth & Recovery and Arnica D6 tablets today too, but take three-hourly while awake.
•Unplug the phone today so that you can rest and Baby is not unsettled. Take it easy, you will soon be feeling better and coping well.
Engorgement:
•If your breasts are very hard and painful, cut a nipple-sized hole in the centre of two whole cabbage leaves, dip into boiling water for ten seconds, dry excess water and place over your breasts while still warm, to soothe and promote milk flow. Renew at the next and subsequent feeds.
•Warm cloths to your breasts, a shower or warm bath can also help.
•Do not restrict Baby’s sucking time so long as latching is correct, as your breasts need to be emptied. Engorgement will pass within two days.
DAYS FOUR, FIVE AND SIX
Keep pacing yourself through this time and think about how much you have already learnt about your baby. It’s early days yet and you might wonder how you’ll ever cope, but you will. Be gentle on yourself and your little one and do only what is essential.
About Baby
•Baby will pass frequent stools now and for the next few weeks, some just a splatter, others copious. Normal breastfeeding stools are soft, mustard in colour and seem to contain seeds.
•Some baby girls pass a bit of blood from the vagina. This is a reaction to the hormones she has been exposed to while in the womb and will soon clear.
•Keep cleaning the navel and stump of the cord. It will soon fall off or hang by a thread only, which you can snip.
•Passing wind to the top and bottom often, accompanied by red-faced crying, balled fists and pulled-up legs might make you think Baby has colic. Most colic is simply an expression of a baby who needs to feed more frequently or is a reaction to Mom’s anxiety, tiredness and inexperience. The very best you can do is to take things slowly for the next few days; see few visitors; do not allow Baby to be handled by too many people, as this may unsettle him; and know that very soon you will understand his signals well.
•Breast babies often need to feed with a few ‘courses’ each time – starters, main meal, pudding and sometimes even an after-dinner mint! Do not think you have insufficient milk. Between ‘courses’ Baby might need