Brief Answer:
Bottle feeding is a strict no

Detailed Answer:
Hello Mr. XXXXXXX

Thank you for posting your query. I hope to answer all your questions effectively.

I am Dr. Yogesh. D, I am trained in neonatology and I do have expertise in infant feeding.

1. NO BOTTLE FEEDING.

Bottle feeding is absolutely a no, first and very important thing is, there is nothing called there is not enough milk for the baby.

A normal, healthy mother has the capacity to produce enough milk to feed 3 babies without any problem at all.

It is the constant nagging by the elders (Mother-in-laws and mothers who keep saying that milk is not enough for the baby the moment baby starts crying), this is the problem.

By repeatedly saying "there is not enough milk" to the feeding mother the milk production actually goes down. The milk production is as much a psychological phenomenon as it is a physical response.

The mistake was, constant de-motivation and discouragement.

Ideally, every baby should be EXCLUSIVELY breast fed till 6 months, there is no necessity to even give a single drop water also in addition to breast milk till 6 months of age.

After 6 months, you can gradually start giving water with spoon NEVER USE A BOTTLE even for water. Then you can go on to give ragi malt, or cerelac appropriate for age.

By 7 to 8 months you can slowly introduce mashed potatoes, mashed rice, bananas.

By nine to 10 months you can introduce dal, ideally mashed well and bland and egg.

By one year baby should be able to eat from the family pot. (everything that is cooked).

The first doctor who advised bottle feeding is absolutely wrong.

The second doctor is right in saying that bottle feeding has caused the infection. Bottle feeding does cause infections no matter how well you sterilize the bottle.

You should start breastfeeding again, breast milk production can be re initiated even after 6 months some times. Your wife needs good motivation and encouragement to start breastfeeding.

Breast feeding has many advantages to a. Your wife, b. Your baby, c. Your whole family, d. The country.

Your wife will have reduced risk of breast cancers and ovarian cancers if she breastfeeds the baby more.

Breast feeding should be continued till 2 years of age. That is till 6 months only breastfeeding, then breastfeeding along with introducing foods slowly.

2. Bottle feeding is very very harmful. No other opinion about this.

3. You daughter has got bronchiolitis mainly because of the bottle feeding. There can be other causes but bottle feeding makes everything worse. Bottle feeding will lead to all types of infections.

4. There is nothing like "there is no mother's milk", There will be enough milk for three babies.

5. Breastfeeding has many benefits to baby, baby will not get infections, baby will have high intelligence, baby will grow well and so many more.

I sincerely hope this answers all your questions. Please continue to breastfeed your daughter, you are doing injustice to your daughter by feeding her by bottle.

Wishing your daughter a bright future.

Warm regards.

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Brief Answer:
Stop blaming yourself.

Detailed Answer:
Dear Mrs XXXXXXX

I will answer the last question first.

I am sorry if I sounded too aggressive in my earlier answer. I am not blaming you for anything at all. The circumstances forced you to do what you did and you had consulted a doctor before you took the decision to feed your baby by a bottle.

I would say the onus is on the doctor who advised bottle feeding.

Now coming to what happened at 4 months, you said your baby suddenly stopped accepting feeds and she was not suckling well.

Young babies refuse to suck at the breast if they have any infection, and they will look very ill and will cry uncontrollably, you can't make them quite no matter what you do, slowly they become very sleepy and look very dull and you can't wake them up easily and so on.

So my suspicion is, your baby had some infection and then she refused to feed.

Generally old paediatricians still advice bottle feeding, they were born in that era of baby boom and were very well brainwashed by the propagandists from the companies which produced these formula feeds, and they failed to realize the harm bottle feeding causes.

The situation now is different, now we have a large number studies which have been conducted to see the impact of bottle feeding, and the plain and simple fact established by these studies is, ""80% bottle fed babies develop serious, life threatening infections"".

I just want to ask you one question; did the 70 year old doctor prescribe some antibiotics when you consulted him or no?

Your daughter was definitely hungry because she had not fed well for some time, so she drank 100 ml of formula milk.

Babies drink from the bottle easily because it is very easy for them to suck from the bottle. Babies don't have to work hard to suck the milk out of the bottle, so they suck effectively and drink good amounts of milk from the bottles, and once they start on a bottle it is simply not possible to make them suck at the breast because they have to work hard to suck at the breast and they simply try to avoid working hard.

This is the psychology of infants during breast feeding.

What your doctor did wrong again is advising a bottle, instead of a bottle, he could suggested you to feed your baby with a spoon and katori, or you get something called "palada", it looks like a diya and specifically used for feeding young babies, a simple thing such as this would have prevented further infections in your baby.

Dear XXXXXXX I can understand your frustration and helplessness in that situation, I can sympathize with you and I know how difficult it is to take care of your first baby when you are learning all these new things and you have to listen to so many people's advice and many times they are contradictory advice, on top of this you did not get proper advice from a doctor whom you trusted.

Stop blaming yourself, it alright now, continue to feed your baby with a spoon or "palada", don't use any bottle, trust me if you try you can still breast feed your baby, you just need to put your baby to your breast and let her suck for 10 to 20 minutes, the simple action of the baby sucking at your breast will stimulate milk production and it will make you more confident as a mother.

Most of times what our elders tell us are wrong when it comes to bringing up a child and about feeding a child.

Now I will try and answer as many of the other questions posted.
1.     The cold Mrs XXXXXXX seems to suffering from looks to me like asthma. When antibiotics don’t work and if the sputum (spit) which looks like thread suggest that the issue is not infection but more likely asthma, so you need to consult an XXXXXXX medicine doctor (MD general medicine or a pulmonologist), cetirizine will help to some extent but what she needs are bronchodilators (medicines which open up the lungs and decrease the sputum formation). Since she has undergone caesarean section for her first delivery, it will ideal to wait for at least 5 years before you plan a second pregnancy. After a C-Section if you conceive too early (Less than 3 years) there are chances of very XXXXXXX uterine rupture. So please wait for 5 years before planning your second baby. You can use copper-T as a contraceptive method.
2.     Laryngo-tracheo-bronchitis means the infection/inflammation of the wind pipe, and the smaller wind pipes inside the lungs. There is possibility that your wife is asthmatic and this same is possible in your child also. Asthma is mostly a genetic condition, so if a parent has asthma, it is likely that the child will also have asthma. Please consult a paediatrician to rule out asthma in your child. If your baby has wheezing, then you will be able to hear a musical sound (like a whistle) when your child breaths. Whenever she has that kind of sound coming, then you will have to take her to your paediatrician and get her examined. She will benefit from bronchodilator therapy and as she grows older this will become less.
3.     Your sister having fibroid. Yes there are chances of fibroid happening again. A fibroid is nothing but a bunch of smooth muscle cells which start growing more and start multiplying when they are not supposed. We call that a benign tumor (It is not cancer), these fibroids are hormone dependent, meaning, they will grow when there is enough estrogen and progesterone in the body, so the possibility fibroids recurring is there till the time your sister attains menopause(Stopping of periods when ladies grow older). Yes, she can conceive again, fibroids generally don’t affect her ability to conceive.
4.     Healthy diet for a lady after pregnancy to lose weight. There is no diet to lose weight. What she can do to lose weight that she gained during pregnancy is by eating a little less quantity of food. Eat less fatty foods, exercise regularly, exercising daily will reduce weight very fast and will also make your wife get her figure back. Avoid eating large meals, eat less but more frequently, drink plenty of water and eat plenty of green leafy vegetables. Increasing the amount of roughage (fibre content in the food will fill your stomach, but at the same time gives you less calories). Avoid empty calories like coke and pepsi, avoid eating too much sugar and ghee and oils.
5.     Infection during pregnancy. In pregnancy women get vaginal infections quite frequently and the same can be transmitted to the man when they have sex. If that problem is solved you can forget about it. Having sex during pregnancy has no effect on the brain of the baby, and babies in mother’s womb cannot understand that her parents are having sex, so relax. Having pain in the vagina during sex is not very uncommon, that can happen even after delivery, the best thing to do to avoid this pain is to increase foreplay, your wife should be relaxed and should be willing to have sex, if you force her to have sex she will not be mentally ready and that causes her vagina to have spasms and she can have pain. Don’t hurry while having sex, get proper arousal in your wife, when she is ready mentally and physically, she will have enough lubrication and that will decrease the pain.

Dear Mr XXXXXXX and XXXXXXX I hope I have answered all your questions. Please feel free to write back if you feel that I have not addressed any of your questions.
If you have no further questions and are both satisfied of my answers, you may close the discussion. Consider rating the answer and give your feedback about the same.

Wishing all of you a very happy life,
Warm regards,
Dr. Yogesh. D

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