I need help with a newborn that has no suck. Baby born Saturday, very fast but good birth. Undecsended testes but no other abnormalities. Mom has large inverted nipples but baby latched on and nursed twice before I left them that day and several times after. Monday went by to check on them and he had stopped nursing and was getting dehydrated and lethargic. mom's milk was beginning to come in so we gave her an electric pump to get the milk for the baby and to pull out the inverted nipples. She gives the baby the milk every two hours and he is doing better but still won't suck, even the bottle. He is sleeping alot and has to be stimulated to wake and take the milk that we drizzle into the mouth. When he is offered the breast he acts like we are trying to suffocate him and he gets very frustrated and cries loudly. I have a childrens materia medica that mentions the teste issue and the poor suck for lycopodium. Can some one help me. Mom dad and grandma very afraid and wrung out and I am thinking everyone in the house needs some aconite maybe!!

My first thought would be Opium, for the shock from a quick birth, the sleepiness, the indifference to eating, the lethargy.

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David Kempson.<br />Dip.Homoeopathic Medicine.<br />Lecturer Australian College of Natural Therapies (Brisbane Campus)<br />Member AHA, AROH, HMA<br />Member Australian Homoeopathic Association. Member#0442.

First, a baby with a mamma who has inverted nipples that wants to breastfeed should never be fed via an artificial nipple. Feed the baby with either a syringe or cup or spoon. Another option for infant feeding would be an SNS (supplemental nursing system) where the bottle is hung around the mother's neck, and tubes from it are attached to the mother's breasts. Contact a medical supply store, hospital or lactation consultant for such a contraption.

Take the baby to a chiropractor/osteopath that specializes in children or at least has children his/herself. Quick and easy births can sometimes be too quick and not so easy for their little spines when coming down the birth canal.

Its not fun dealing with a lethargic baby. Be sure to emphasise to the mother's family that she is going to need someone to care for HER as she devotes all of her time to the many tasks that are required to get this baby back on the road of good health.

P.S. Was the baby circumcised? That can sometmes cause a baby to go into shock and may change David's prescription.

If yes, which method was used? "Crown" or "Cut and Rip"? Seems lots of babies don't take to breastfeeding when the crown is cutting off the circulation of their penis.

Even though the birth seemed easy it would be good to give Arn. especially if the infant seems to have any sorness in the neck area.
Take the baby to a osteopath or chiro to get his neck checked as he may be unable to suck do to neck problems from birth as already indicated by others.
Several hours after the arn. the mother may take puls and the infant will get help from it through the mothers milk.

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Anti-aging
Carole Franske

Thanks for your responces. to mamma3 we did try every other option as far as getting the baby to take the milk from cup, spoon, dropper but the baby would spit out the milk. we went to the nipple because nothing else worked. I have been a midwife for 8 years and I have never had such a stubborn situation with a nursing problem. I saw them this morning and used the lycopodium 30c disolved in some breast milk and after 15 min we had an alert baby who took the human nipple from a football hold and sucked well for over 15 min on one side and for 10 min on the second!!! I tried to get him to nurse before I gave the remedy just to make sure he was still having trouble and he was. His symptoms were worse from late afternoon until around 8 in the evening, he had a right teste that had decsended but not the left. He had an irritability every time we tried to get him to nurse or moved him around and he would really screw up his face. Newborns are hard to repetorize!!!

What children's materia medica do you have? I must admit that I never would have found lycopodium for this problem and would have probably followed along David's line of looking for a "disposition to sleep" remedy.

Snoopy

I am happy to report that this mother and baby are doing very well. I can't remember the name of the childrens book as it didn't belong to me but I ordered Homoepathic remedies for the pediatric practice and the woman at minimum price looked up our problem and said that the author also mentioned lyc was the first consideration for suck problems. I found that book by looking in Acute Theraputics as it was listed as a reference. I guess it is because the problem can very well be an immature nuerological system or mucscular development.the time modality also matched as he was worse between 4 and 8pm and better after 8pm and the testes not descended. the right to left also may have applied as the right side dropped first.
This was definitely a success!!
Michelle

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