midwife's muse

Names and more

Ffion; Sophie; Amy

Ellis; Hayden; Douglas; Max

Today was better than I thought It would be. Clinic ran smoothly and by the end I was only running 15 minutes late, and, 5 minutes of that was because one of the women was late. Everyone was well and had no problems - I love sessions like that, especially on my first day back. Visits were more problematic. Lots of sore boobs and one nasty infection. Visited one lady whose babe had not done a dirty nappy for 4 days, he was 10 days old. The colour had just started changing from the greeny/black of meconium to normal yellow. Since then, nothing. Baby was feeding well. Was content and his tummy was soft. Normally I wouldn't worry, I would just reassure Mum and say that for a breast-fed baby anything from 5 dirty nappies a day, to nothing for 5 days is fine. What concerned me though was that baby had not yet produced a true dirty nappy. I told Mum I would return on Friday, Health Visitor was going in on Thursday, and hopefully by then baby would have performed. Carrying on with visits I kept thinking about this baby, so popped back to the hospital and tracked down a paediatrician. "Don't worry", was his advise, "unless it hasn't opened it's bowels by Friday." Oh well, right decision but now I'm going to have this baby's bowels on my mind until then. Unfortunately I'm going out for a curry tonight, I'll avoid Korma. 

6.4.04 17:53