Yesterday I took Francis for his usual weigh-in at the breastfeeding workshop at Liverpool Women's Hospital. I was already having a pretty crappy day. I'd overslept and had a mad dash trying to get to the hospital on time; I was more than a little flustered by the time I got there at around 12pm. I cheered up a bit after Francis was weighed though; he'd put on 1lb 2oz in 2 weeks, taking him to 6lb 8oz! I was extremely pleased with this so was more than a little puzzled when Kate told me that Francis' weight was dropping off the growth chart! How could a baby who has put on over a pound in 2 weeks not be gaining enough weight?
While Kate went off to see the consultant, I chatted with the other advisor and asked for some advice about Francis bringing up milk after feeds. Kate returned and was informed of the vomiting and felt that this could explain his "poor" weight gain. She went for another chat with the consultant and returned with some rather disturbing news.
The consultant felt that Francis should go to Alder Hey Children's Hospital to be checked out more thoroughly as the vomiting could be a sign of a urine infection and his lack of weight gain needed to be investigated. I was appalled and annoyed, but reluctantly agreed to take Francis to Alder Hey Accident and Emergency to be checked out. Unfortunately, I had to ring Graeme at work to come and pick us up as I had no idea how to get there on the bus or how long it would take me.
Once at Alder Hey we ended up parking as far from A&E as was humanly possible. It took a good 10 minutes to get from the car to A&E. After checking in at reception, Francis was seen by the triage nurse who did his observations - which were all perfect - and asked us the reasons for his referral. We were then told to go to another waiting area and wait to be called in by the doctors. No sooner had we sat down again, Francis was in dire need of a nappy change. The changing room in A&E was out of order, so I left the department to look for another one. True to Sods Law, Francis was called in as soon as I'd left!
We eventually got into the observation room where we waited to be seen by a doctor. By the time a doctor came over, Francis was screaming to be fed so the doctor left again so I could feed him. While feeding Francis, I overheard one of the nurses saying that Francis had been referred for failure to thrive! I couldn't believe my ears! Francis had put on a fantastic amount of weight, so how could he possibly not be thriving? Exactly how much weight did they expect a breastfed, premature baby to put on in 2 weeks?
After I'd finished feeding Francis the doctor came back over. I took Francis' growth chart out to show her and when I looked at it I realised Kate had made a mistake! She hadn't accounted for Francis' prematurity when she'd marked his weight on the graph! (Although Francis is 12 weeks old, his corrected age, taken from his due date, is only 3 weeks.) Kate had marked the graph at 12 weeks instead of 3 weeks; no wonder it looked as though he wasn't gaining enough! Once the doctor had put his weight in the correct place, it was obvious he was gaining weight quite nicely! The doctor then examined Francis and declared him perfectly healthy - not that I needed a medical professional to tell me that.
I had hoped that we'd be able to go home at this point when it was clear that it was all a mix-up, but they wanted to test Francis for a urine infection as the consultant had requested. So we were given a sample pot and waited for Francis to produce the goods. And waited. And waited. Francis was not playing ball and was getting increasingly upset. The doctor suggested that I feed Francis again to calm him and to hopefully fill his bladder up a bit more. After 45 minutes of this Francis peed enough for a sample. It was now after 4pm.
We were then told we had to see the registrar who had accepted the consultants referral. He was running a clinic so we had to wait yet again. It was almost 5pm by the time he arrived. After explaining Francis' history and reasons for referral, he agreed that it was all a mistake and that his weight gain was fine. Francis was examined yet again and was again declared perfectly healthy. His urine test came back clear so I was advised to give him Gaviscon for his vomiting. At 5:15pm, we were finally able to leave.
We got back to the car to find one of the tyres completely flat - the rotten icing on the extremely shitty cake of a day we'd already had. It was gone 6pm when we finally got home.
Now I'm all for better safe than sorry - having HELLP Syndrome taught me that you really can never be too cautious when it comes to health. If Francis genuinely had some worrying symptoms than needed to be checked out, then I really cannot fault how swiftly it was dealt with. However, in this case Francis was referred on the basis of a simple mistake. I just can't fathom out how Kate and the consultant didn't realise that 1lb 2oz is not poor weight gain and look at the bigger picture instead of relying on the growth chart. Still, I suppose it's easily done, but it did cause me a lot unnecessary worry, not to mention the inconvenience of spending all that time at hospital. As his Mum I knew there was nothing wrong with Francis, so I think i'll trust my own instincts next time.
Lisa xxx
The health visitor also told me off for not eating enough. Apparently, I'm so exhausted because all my energy is going into making breastmilk for Francis and my body has nothing left for me! Oh well, any excuse to eat more is fine by me!
