URGENT question: pre-anesthesia pedialyte, apple juice, or water??

[askins]

My 10 week old son is exclusively breastfed.  Tomorrow he needs to have an MRI done of his foot (for an issue he was born with), and because of his squirmy age, he'll need to be under general anesthesia.  The nurse just called with the instructions, and he is not to have breastmilk after 8am.  The MRI is at 1pm with check in at the hospital at noon.  She said I may give him water, pedialyte, or watered down apple juice.  He usually eats every 3 hours.  what would you do? Which of the three options do you think is best?  Should I give him nothing?

Edited by askins - 7/6/11 at 3:13pm

[PatioGardener]

When is the MRI scheduled for?

Me, I would give nothing by mouth at all. When my guy had surgery at 2 months, he could have breastmilk until 4 hours before. After that I wore him, walked a lot and then he had an IV so he got fluids through that.

I kept him exclusively breastfed because I believe it has long term ramifications on gut flora.

good luck!

[askins]

Oh yes!  The MRI is at 1pm and we check into the hospital at noon.  I'll update the original post.  

Thanks for your response!  It is kind of my instinct not to give him anything either, but I didn't know if that would be cruel.  

[PatioGardener]

I made sure that my baby got a really good feed in that ended just about 4 hours before the scheduled surgery. We did a lot of finger sucking (mine), cuddling and I think he slept for part of it too!

I have been told that plain water is dangerous in EBF young babies, and I decided that we'd get through those 4 hours some how, because I was protecting him in the long run.

And it was ok in the end. Awful at the time with the stress, but over a year later and we're both ok, and he was EBF for over 6 months and still loves to nurse as a toddler

nak

[Springshowers]

We went through this recently with our 17 month old. A totally different age, but I found that lots of distractions, stroller pushing and talking got her through the hungry moments. It was terrible at one point just near the end she found a banana in our bag and was devastated we took it away. At the age your little one is at you might want to make sure you have lots of layers between your breasts and the baby, and maybe have your partner take care of some of the later stage comforting if baby is comfortable with it to keep the smell of your milk away from baby.

The first procedure our daughter had we didn't wake her early enough to have any fluids, and the second time they told us it was really important she arrived hydrated. But I guess it's only a few hours longer than usual between your feeds and when the IV starts, so it's probably not a big deal. For us her last water was at night before she slept.. so it was a long time for her to go. I just wonder if having oral water would be more comforting... and if she's getting IV hydrated as well she will be getting fluids. Would it really be worse to get them by mouth vs through IV? I don't get what the difference would be. I know long term use of water bottles in little babies can have bad effects with reducing calories.. but that wouldn't apply here would it?

Good luck!

[Alenushka]

Well, no one like pedialyte, but it has elctrolytes and is probably better in that respect than water.

My son had an MRI under anestestia too, for his heart. It is very effective diagnostic tool.

[Marissamom]

Originally Posted by HappyMonkey 

. I just wonder if having oral water would be more comforting... and if she's getting IV hydrated as well she will be getting fluids. Would it really be worse to get them by mouth vs through IV? I don't get what the difference would be. I know long term use of water bottles in little babies can have bad effects with reducing calories.. but that wouldn't apply here would it?

Good luck!

for the EBF baby, plain water can throw of their electrolyte balance, an IV has saline, with contains salt to keep the electrolyte balance steady. 

I've always heard, and read in many sources, that because breast-milk is so quickly digestible it is supposed to be considered a clear liquid for anesthesia purposes

[Springshowers]

The hospital we had the work done had special rules for BM.. it was milk up to 8 hours before I think, but BM up until  hours before. Something like that.

That makes sense about the electrolytes...

[ZakareyasMama]

I hope it went okay. I just had a similar issue when DS had a brain and spine MRI at 3 months. Our ped told us pedialite is better that water. We were scheduled for 8 am and he was allowed breastmilk until 3 am and pedialite till 4:30. He was asleep after the 3 am feeding and I didn't wake him. He was fine till about 7:30 and was crying by 8 am (they delayed us an extra hour bc they were "backed up"). That was the absolute worst! Anyway I hope it went okay for you. It was so hard for me to see him with all those machines! 

[PatioGardener]

Askins, how did it go?

[askins]

So here's how it all worked out.

I called my lactation consultant.  She contacted a friend of hers who is a surgical nurse and they said that breastmilk is supposed to be considered a clear fluid.  She recommended that I feed him about three hours ahead of time, so that he'd be getting hungry right as he went under.

So I fed him at 10am.  We drove over to Children's with my mom (his grandma).  The anesthesiologist had a horrible bedside manner in general, but he wasn't very happy with me, because apparently it is *hospital policy* not to consider BM a clear fluid.  So they moved another child in front of my son in the queue and then took him.  He got a bit hungry, but my mom rocked him - I tried to stay away so that my bb's didn't drive him nuts.  They ended up taking him at 1:30, which was earlier than the *hospital policy*.

I am a rules person and I don't like not following instructions.  But I am glad that I did it this way.  Even if we had to wait longer than we did, I would rather have him hungry at the very end, right before they come to take him, then risk having him be ravenous on the drive across town and be kept waiting for potentially even longer. 

In recovery, the nurse initially offered pedialyte, but when I said he was EBF, she was like, oh forget about it.  BM is all he needs!

Thanks for the input.