A grieving mother, Jillian Johnson, feels her newborn baby would have been alive today if she had introduced him to the bottle rather than exclusive breastfeeding. She feels she had failed her deceased baby, Landon, because she followed what the nurses and doctors told her to the letter. Now Jillian feels she knows better and in a superior position to advise other new mothers on the need to supplement breastfeeding with the bottle if their babies couldn't get filled.
Baby Landon died of severe dehydration and cardiac arrest
Baby Landon had suffered severe dehydration and died of cardiac arrest a few days after its birth. He was born on February 24, 2012 and would have celebrated his fifth birthday last week. The baby however was always crying and inconsolable after breastfeeding, and he rarely wet or soiled his diapers. Little did Jillian, who was a first-time mom, know that her breast milk wasn't flowing enough and baby Landon remained ever hungry and starved, Fox News reports.
Jillian was delivered via Caesarean section and diagnosed with polycystic ovary syndrome after the birth of her baby - a condition that would have made her breasts not to produce enough milk to satisfy or fill a baby. However, doctors never told her to supplement feeding her baby with formula since her milk would not flow. And to compound the problem, the new mother exclusively breastfed her constantly crying baby without knowing he was not getting any milk from her breasts.
Jillian wants other new mothers to learn from her tragic experience
It is five years now and Jillian has another baby, Stella, but she can't get over the loss of Landon, her firstborn. Now she has consulted widely with more experienced and unbiased pediatricians and come up with a table of advice for new moms. Jillian would want all mothers to take these advices to heart and implement them with the help of their own doctors, while using their discretions here and there.
Jillian advises that newborns must be fed every one to three hours during the day, with an hour or two of sleep in-between these feeding periods. She adds that a baby should wet or soil its nappies with pale yellow urine up to six times in the day - a sure sign that it is passing out waste from its meal. And then, it should also stool between two to four times a day with substances that look grainy and mustard-colored.
Meanwhile, the now experienced mom says it is best to listen to your baby swallowing during breastfeeding to ensure they are taking in enough milk. She added that a mother must be certain that her breasts are emptied after a baby feeds, ensuring it is perfectly filled and happy. Meanwhile, introducing baby formular or expressed breast milk fed through a bottle shouldn't be a bad idea once it is apparent that a baby is not getting enough through latching or the breasts are not producing enough milk to fill the baby.
