Help! Breastfeeding and Food Poisoning

[dancebaraka]

DD is 9+ months. Dh and I both just got food poisoning to the extreme- up all night violently throwing up and diarrhea. I feel so weak and sore. I was able to keep down a little baked potatoe today and am drinking water. I am worried about DD's hydration. We have stayed layed up in the family bed and I am nursing a lot but I don't know how much she is getting. She had a couple wet dipes this morning but it is slowing down. I don't normally offer water, but should I for this circumstance? She is self feeding but only every other day or so and it is mostly exploration. I have never had any supply issues or anything- are we going to be ok? Any thoughts... ideas? Help Mamas! I feel horrible.

[dancebaraka]

Oh yes and we have taken a few doses of arsenicum 30c.

[Jane]

She'll be fine. We humans are adaptable. Think of your ancestors - I'm sure that someone in your family had an iffy food/water supply and went through times of famine or sickness and yet, you are here. OT, but there's some evidence that periodic fasting is good for us. Not that I'd fast a 9 month old, but you know...

You can offer her water if you like - she's old enough that she won't get the electrolyte disturbances from too much water - that's why you don't offer water to little babies. I don't think it's essential though. Fruit has lots of water, too, as well as veggies if you are worried about her.

My biggest advice is to remember to wash your hands after using the bathroom or vomiting and before eating or feeding her to make sure you don't pass on the infection.

That and the spoon method of hydration - even the sickest of kids or adults can keep down one small spoonful of water every 15 minutes. You just do one spoonful every fifteen - no sooner, no more. It sounds like you're past that, but I thought I'd throw it out there.

[Peony]

She'll be fine. I just had food poisoning over the weekend and my 15m old is still mostly EBF. This was Fri/Sat and my supply is back to normal now.

[Turkish Kate]

I went through an ugly bout of food poisoning when my DS was about the same age. Fortunately, I wasn't the only one in the house and had plenty of others to help out with him, they just brought him to me to nurse. He didn't get dehydrated and at the time was only having my milk--no solids or supplements. My only problem was that my supply took a huge dive and never quite came back up to where it was before (although I did have a major oversupply before this happened). Drink whatever you can tolerate and once you have your tummy back, eat oatmeal. If *you* start getting too dehydrated, you might want to think about calling your doctor or local walk-in urgent care clinic for a liter of IV fluids (I wish I had).