Baptist Hospital

[davidcd]

My wife is breast feeding. I believe you are allowed to feed twice per day. Once at noon and another time at 4pm. They didn't offer any way to express my wife's milk so they could use it during the baby's bottle feeding time, but we didn't specifically ask.

Perhaps you should take a manual breast pump with you just in case your milk begins early-on after birth. From what I understand you should keep regularly expressing the milk to both promote increased production and prevent backup/hardness/infection. Double check into this though. If you go this route, hopefully the hospital could at least provide you with sterile bottles so that they can actually put it to use with your baby. I know the public hospitals let you do this.

There were at least two other mothers, even just in our room, who wanted to book a private room. The general consensus was the chances are very slim. There are no shortage of mothers requesting private rooms.

If you're in the general ward, you'll be with at least 8 people. All of the other patients we were with were very friendly and it was nice for my wife to be able to chat with them. There are of course curtains you can close off for privacy also.

I really hope you can get the private room, but it will be quite a challenge. Aside from the breastfeeding issue, I was really hoping my wife had more time with the baby for bonding purposes, but the hospital seems to have very little concept or concern about this. I was worried about my wife's feelings and condition related to being separated from the baby for most of the time in the days following birth, but as impersonal as it was, she was in such high spirits from having given birth that it really was fine.. so I am sure you will be fine too in terms of this aspect.

My wife was just getting a bit stressed out before hand with all of the mentioned things... I had a bit of fun with her rewording the bible verses they had on their walls to lift her spirits... things like "Love is Patient" turned into "Love is Patient, especially when the meter is running" and many others . It seemed to get her laughing at least. You're already set to fair better than us based on your experiences thus far.

If you have any other questions, feel free to ask... I know first hand it can be pretty difficult to get detailed answers from the Hospital.

 

[JoyousBaby]

Sorry maybe what I'm going to ask is off the topic. At HK Baptist Hospital, what is the brand of milk they give during bottle feeding time? As for SIN hospital they give bottled Nestle Nan 1 and feel is more hygienic as is a one time feed. they change new bottle each time. I'm not too sure what is the practice here. We need to bring our own milk powder or they provide? If they provide is it the bottled milk or they use milk powder?? Please advise thank you.

 

[Gracey]

Hi Joyous Baby -- I don't know the answer to your question. I think most people here are more concerned with how they will breastfeed. Just curious. Is there a reason you want to use formula from the beginning instead?

 

[davidcd]

They have a big chart with a lot of options, you can choose which milk you want them to feed. They likely have the brand you want.

Ultimately, if you don't have a private room, you're going to have to choose which kind of powder you want them to use. I suspect that even if you get a private room you will still have to choose, just in case your supply is not enough initially and have to supplement with formula.

 

[JoyousBaby]

Hi Gracey,

Just in case I don't have much milk as my previous 2 gals face this problem. So the hospital were bttle feed n I tried breastfeeding too.

 

[Gracey]

David -- I've asked again. The maternity nurse said that, even if I didn't have a private room, I could go to the nursery / feeding room anytime to feed. They did not set limits on how many feeds a day.
They will not bring the baby to the mother in a group ward. However, the nurse assured me that if I was going through natural delivery, as planned, I should be totally capable of walking down a corridor not too long after.
If I was really weak, they would happily wheel me into the nursing room if I was determined to breast feed exclusively.
It's not perfect, but they did seem to accommodate breast-feeding mothers. And my doctor was happy to answer questions about colostrum, and having to wait a few days till the milk came in.

 

[Gracey]

I think much of this is how the patient approaches it, too. I've been asking about breastfeeding from the beginning. I'm going to write it clearly on my birth plan, and stick a big note on my bed. My doc said this was a good idea. And I'm willing to go through the discomfort of hauling myself to the nursing room if I really don't get a private room.
So I think it's do-able, though it's not what most of the local / mainland mothers opt to do. I just need to be a little insistent.

 

[RileyC]

Just in case I don't have much milk as my previous 2 gals face this problem. So the hospital were bttle feed n I tried breastfeeding too.

Joyous baby, I'm not sure if or how much you've read or heard about breastfeeding, but the size of a baby's stomach in the first few days of its life is that of a small marble. In other words, a baby doesn't need to drink that much. In the first few days immediately after giving birth the body produces a small quantity of colostrum ( or first milk, which is yellowish in colour and contains, among other things, antibodies) and then the breast milk comes in at about day 3. Your body will and can produce enough milk, but breastfeeding isn't easy and requires patience.

 

[charade]

RileyC, this may be true but in my own experience, a baby can be hungry before the breastmilk comes in adequately. I had a miserable time the first couple of days after my baby was born because even after two hours of breastfeeding - and sitting up with the baby at my breast for two hours at a stretch each time just after having delivered was a killer - my baby was not satisfied. This may be because he just wanted to keep sucking but when I finally agreed to let them feed him formula (they cup fed him) he was fine and would go to sleep peacefully. Once my milk came in though he was fine and I had no problems breastfeeding him exclusively. If I had to do it again, I would have agreed to those initial formula cupfeeds sooner and saved myself a whole lot of agony and fatigue.

 

[Gracey]

Amazing what a difference doctors can make even at the same hospital. My preferred doctor may be out of town a few weeks before my due date, and he kindly set up a back-up.

So I went to see this back-up doctor to go over my birth plan, and her views on natural birth and breast-feeding were totally different. In fact, her first question to me was "when did you schedule your C-section for?", and then looked non-plussed when I said I hadn't pre-scheduled one.

She dismissed exclusive breastfeeding as "gweilo" idea, and said that it didn't work for Chinese people because we were prone to jaundice and getting yellow skin. In fact, she dismissed most of my birth plan -- moving around in early pregnancy, being allowed to eat and drink lightly -- as "gweilo" things. I don't mind honest advice, but she seemed rather stuck on "Chinese people do this, but gweilos do that." She said this in Cantonese in front of my foreigner husband.

After openly discussing these issues with my excellent main doctor over the last few months, he's never mentioned that Chinese babies must have formula to prevent jaundice. (What of bi-racial babies then?)

Not sure what to do. Hopefully, baby will arrive either before or after my regular doctor's week off. Do you think I should look for another back-up? Or do you think it will be fine? After all, it's the maternity nurses who look after feeding babies anyway. I did talk to them, and they seem pro-breastfeeding.