If
your baby has an NG tube without any underlying condition and you wondering why
your baby is not eating or why not breastfeeding and why your G.I. pediatrician
has the tube in your baby then you must read this article.
Doctors will tell
you various reasons to justify the NG tube and your baby damn I said that your
baby has a vitamin deficiency or magnesium more for Thursday efficiency or what
not Dr. also say that your baby is dehydrated malnourished and that’s why
you’ll have to keep the tube for months and months matter of fact the longer you
keep the tube the less is the chance of getting it out sooner. Per medical science
doctor must have an exit plan for the tube before they put the tube in
your baby but that’s not happening in America this is more like a business in
America that you put the tube in and then your baby gets a habit of tube. And
the longer you keep the tube the more chances that your baby will forget the
breast-feeding, forget spoon feeding and not even put an
effort to eat by other mediums and in this situation it will take several years
for your baby to learn eating and if someone is justifying that the baby can
eat with the tube then they should first put the tube in themselves and try to
even drink water and see how painful it is. It’s really difficult and painful to get anything
down your throat with the tube in and that’s what babies goes through but that poor little thing can't speak and complaint and so these nasty doctors out there take advantage of it and make money out of it.
And so it’s
difficult for a baby to learn eating it will become difficult for baby to grow
normally. And in a normal condition the tube can stay in anywhere from six months to a year but not longer than that. Within this time frame the baby will develop complications such as throat irritation
and other complication and side effect of NG tube and by this time your baby
doesn’t know any other method to eat and you know a time comes when it is
medically required for you to remove the tube and then there is no other option
but to put a hole in your baby's intestine and put a G tube or maybe a G button
and so once that is in, it will require a lot of ER visit and a regular check up
with your G.I. pediatrician so that's the reason why they do not have an exit plan
when they put the tube in is because they want you to visit them again and
again and that’s the bitter truth.
So now the question
is what can you do to save your baby out of this mess. If your baby has no
major underlying condition then your baby is ready for tube weaning no matter what. Regardless of whoever is telling you that your baby is not ready just ignore them.
My baby had diarrhea and lose motion episodes and after that my baby lost her milk sucking ability for a couple of days because she was still weak because of that in my wife’s milk supply dropped. My baby was 4 1/2 months
old back then and she was only breast-feeding maybe taking a little bit one or
two spoons of fruit juice or oatmeal or things like that but she hasn’t started
eating completely by other means other than breast-feeding. And so the milk
supply was dropped and we didn’t realize that and the stupid pediatrician
couldn’t find that either and so my baby was malnourished for one and a half
months and at the six-month visit we found out that our baby is dehydrated and
we have to take her to ER. They started feeding her through the NG tube and
then they started changing one after another formula and they did so many tests
on her so many x-rays and what not. And then we were discharged from the
hospital after three weeks and they kept the NG tube and ask us to keep feeding
formula through the tube. Initially we were following and feeding
her every four Hours but eventually I realize that she’s overfed and she has
lost her breast-feeding and spoon feeding ability and she was no longer latching for breast-feeding or wants to eat anything by her mouth.
My baby was about
seven months and I realize that I have to do something regardless of all his
pediatrician G.I. pediatrician. A doctor that I know personally who has
nothing to do with all these children’s hospital who is my
family friend also recommended that she is not ready for
tube winning. Although I started reducing her tube supply. I gradually decreased formula supply and then day by day I decreased it one time a day and then kept it minimum and try to
encourage her for breast-feeding and then eventually I ended up giving her only
only at night time formula through tube and so she started staying hungry and started taking breastmilk eventually.
And one day she
pull the tube out on her own and then we went to the doctor and we put the tube
back in and after for five days she pulled your back out again so that kind of
was an indication that my baby wasn’t ready for the tube she just wanted the
tube out and when the second time she pulled the tube out we didn’t put the tube
back in and we try to give her breast milk or other liquid by spoon
so without the tube she was hungry and she started taking all the food gradually. We gave my wife fenugreek seed power 2 gram a day with water and Satavari powder 3 gm a day with water. These items helps increasing milk supply. You can buy these on ebay or amazon. I am not providing link here otherwise people think that I am writing this to make money out of this article which is not my intention. My wife also started pumping more frequently. I also encourage you to buy a baby scale which comes with an app so you can keep track of your baby's weight. Again you can buy it from Amazon, Walmart or ebay. This is a must item if you want to get rid of tube because you will have to measure your baby's weight everyday in the morning before feeding her.
I ended up giving
her only 90 ML of supply to the tube which kept her hungry and started giving her
through the breast. Initially her weight started dropping we decided to set a target that if her weight start dropping below a certain weight then we will go back to the
tube feeding but her weight dropped for about 4 days and then on the fifth days
it remained the same and on the sixth day started going up and during
this time we also started to give her some food by spoon like oatmeal
vegetable purées multigrain oatmeal mix with breast milk. She liked yogurt so much so we used to mix gerber rice and multigrains which helped her gain so much. When she was hospitalized she lost about 40% of her weight and she needed the tube feeding to get out of dehydration and all but whenever your GI puts tube in, they must have a plan to remove it before they put it in. And they cant just keep it for weeks and months and years. Thats just money making business for them and they dont want to remove it. We were told by all the doctors that the tube will remain in her body for at least a year. We kept it for a month and half and then she removed it on her own. We went to Dr and put it back in. After a week my baby removed it again. It simply means that it is hurting her. If you want to experience how bad it hurts then you should put an NG tube in your body and experience it. I did that. It hurts so bad that you cant bare it more than few hours and doctors wants to keep it in for years because they make money out of it. Its a business for them. This little baby who cant speak wont be able to tell you that it hurts :(. All the moms out there, please trust your instincts. Doctors are stupid they just follow book knowledge and do not feel what you feel about your baby.
Tip: I and my wife started eating in front of our baby so that she can smell and see what we are doing because babies usually imitate everything that you do and thats how they learn. I tried eat food which she can eat too and tried offer the same food from my bowl that I am eating and slowly she started eating. She wasnt trusting because in the hospital they fed her all the nasty thing and did all the nasty tests on her so she had that trauma in her mind so I had win her trust. Yogurt worked best in our case. But you have to be careful in yogurt because you will have to wait at least 2 hour to feed her milk before and after feeding yogurt otherwise it will damage her digestion system and it is no good for her growth either.
So the simple logic here is, if you keep her hungry your baby will eat for sure. Make sure your baby has gained good enough weight from the tube that even if your baby loses weight she can still be above 10 percentile. My baby dropped to 9 percentile when we removed tube. We decided that if she reaches 5 percentile we will still try not to put the tube back in. She is not 29 percentile. Not all the babies are meant to be on higher side of weight. God has programmed some babies to be on lower side so she can be slim trip when she grows up.
Doctors will also scare you that your babies brain and other parts will stop growing. There are many other factors. If you are asian then your babies will on lower percentile because thats how asians are. So it depends on your family and race. If everyone in your family is slim then you cant expect your baby to me heavy weight. Most people from developing countries are malnourished and struggle for food and are underweight but it doesnt mean they all are dumb and their brain has not developed. In fact people from India where malnourished cases are pretty high produce the smartest babies - its a talent factory over there.
I am not a Doctor but I am a dad who loves my child more than anyone in this world. I would recommend you to use your common sense and follow your instincts, do not follow and trust doctors or anyone blindly. Be confident and fight this, dont think that you are alone in this. Many people go through this but with confidence and determination you can definitely get rid of that nasty tube. I know tube has saved life of my baby but at the same time when you keep it more than its really needed just because some nasty doctors out there can make money then it becomes nasty. I hope this helps mothers and parents out there who are going through this. I know it is very painful to see your child going through this and so I want to share my experience to help other parents out there. Happy parenting.
