Gastro and Breastfeeding

[Feijoa Mum]

I have woken up this morning and I feel like dying. Hubby had it earlier in the week and has obviously passed it on. So my question is should I continue to feed Scout? Or should I try and express? He does take formula as well and has had a bottle for breakfast but now I feel like im about to pop as he slept well last night so I am pretty full.
Any ideas gratefully accepted.

[Liz]

Yeah, I'd feed. Much easier to lie down with bub attached than to put the effort in to express. It'll give bub the antibodies to fight the bug if he gets it too, or even perhaps prevent him getting it at all.

Hope you feel better soon.

[SamiH]

Feeding is fine hun - just take all the precautions of washing hands etc before hand and bubs should be fine.

What a crappy time, hope you feel better soon.

[*Efjay*]

Feed him, pass on all those lovelly anitbodies your body is making to fight off the bug so if he does get it also, he has a kick start to fighting from what he got from you.

[MantaRay]

Yep, definitely keep bfing. Firstly, it is the best thing you can do to protect bub from getting it as you will be passing on the antibodies as FJ says. Secondly, it is the easiest way for you to feed (ie lying down and without getting up to do bottles). Thirdly, if he does get it, the bm is the very best thing for him - his tummy will tolerate it far better than formula and it will also help him to get over it more quickly.

I hope you feel better soon hun. It is the pits!!

[Lolli]

Hi,
I had gastro a few weeks ago, and so did my ds. Despite me being on a drip in ahospital for a few hours, we kept bf through it. Ds was so sick, he needed the comfort as well. Just make sure you drink plenty of water, diluted juice or lemonade, or those hydralite iceblocks you get from the chemist (go the apple and blackcurrant rather than the orange) to keep your own fluids up too. Best of luck

[Kmn]

You may also find that you make less milk while you have gastro - I had to use previously expressed stuff for a couple of feeds to keep bub happy

[Jennifer13]

Hope you are feeling better now! And your DS didn't catch it either. Bf bubs are much less likely to catch gastro. Make sure you drink plenty of fluids to help you recover!

[Liz]

Well, I will now join the gastro club! Trouble is, i think my supply did wane throughout today... we had a very dry nappy just now :/ I tried to give her water in a bottle, but she doesn't know what to do with it LOL.. and our sippy cups have valves in them, so she doesn't know to suck it!

I stuck her on the boob again tho, and I squeezed it to see if there's milk and it shot across the room, so she must be getting something. I told her my boobs will be fixed tonight LOL... they always work better at night anyway

Hope your gastro didn't linger too long.

Oh.. and I bought some hydralite powder.. it's soooooo sweet... too sickening to sip on when nauseas. Will have to try the iceblocks next time! I ended up just sucking on some ice for a while to start getting my fluids up.