Anxiety at check out

You will go home from the hospital with a shrinking baby and no “mature” milk in your breasts. Understandably, this often creates great anxiety for new parents. Your baby will do just fine with colostrum as long as your breast milk comes in around the fourth day. The circumstances that interfere with this perfect plan are:

1. Jaundice (elevated bilirubin).

2. Prematurity or small gestational age (small for dates).

3. Loss of more than 10% of birth weight.

4. Delay in milk’s arrival.

The AAP recommends follow-up appointments for babies at the third to fifth day of life to make sure things are heading in the right direction.

It’s a good idea to keep a breastfeeding diary on Glow Baby that tracks both feeding and elimination for the first two weeks. If the milk is going in, it will come out the other end. If you are still uncertain of how things are going, schedule an appointment!