My little Matty

I like to keep the boys' blog happy. You know, pictures and cute stories. So I leave the grouching and complaining and frustration for this blog, and for a week or so, there was a lot of that around here, oy.

So Matt had (has) thrush. For those of you who are not familiar, it's a yeast infection that infects the mouth. I read somewhere that babies aren't susceptible to it after four weeks of age (which makes no sense, when you get to my next paragraph). Lucky us, we won the lottery, and Matt came down with a case of it before four weeks! It looks like whitish cheesy residue on his tongue, and spread to other parts of his mouth. Apparently it is common for it to be passed back and forth between a baby and a breastfeeding mom. Fortunately, I have not won the lottery, and my 'girls' have been spared. Poor Matty just hasn't been so lucky. Thrush alone can make a baby cranky; the tongue is irritated and eating can be tricky. This didn't seem to be Matt's problem, though.

The treatment for thrush in an adult is a liquid suspension called Nystatin. The person swishes it around in their mouth and is supposed to swallow it. We treat it the same way in newborns, only the little rugrats simply refuse to "swish and swallow," so some unfortunate parent has the cruel job of painting their child's mouth with the stuff, using a Q-tip. Read: gagging the child on a regular basis, hoping they don't choke. Matt's thrush wasn't gone after the 10-day prescription, so the doctor called in a second 10 days' worth.

But I digress. Because my experience in administering Nystatin has been limited to cranky patients in their forties, I had no idea what its side effects might be for a baby. The little pamphlet that comes with the medication listed nausea, diarrhea, GI distress, gas, etc... as side effects. Pretty much every medication on the planet lists these same side effects, so I didn't pay much attention. But let me tell you, Nystatin had a very powerful effect on my poor little Matty: he was overcome with horrific gas. He would nurse for less than a minute at a time, pop off, and SCREAM. I'd burp him, and burp him, and burp him... give him dose after dose of Mylicon... he would burp these gigantic burps, but when I'd lay him down to continue feeding, he would scream again. Miserable. I timed it once in the middle of the night: a full hour of attempted feeding won me 6 minutes of interrupted nursing. That means I spent the better part of an hour (remember, in the middle of the night!) burping the poor child. Ineffectively. And you can imagine, this was only winning me about 2 hours between feedings. Ugh. The day 'shift' went pretty much the same, and I was feeding every 1.5-2 hours. Ugh, again.

So I got talking to my mom about this, and she and I came to the conclusion that it was the Nystatin which had turned my happy chubby baby into a gnome. I had my six-week postpartum visit with the midwife, and she recommended a natural treatment, gentian violet. I'd had gazillions of recommendations for it, so I called/drove all over the southern tier trying to find it. The doctor wanted to see Matt again before changing his medication, and in the meantime, I kicked Nystatin to the curb. Wouldn't you know it, I arrived at the doctor's office with a happy, contented baby, and a doctor and nurse who did not believe me when I told them that Nystatin is a tool of the devil. The doctor told me that Matt's thrush was a 'very mild' case, and to give Matt two more days of the med and then just stop. So I hesitantly started up the torturous routine again ...

and promptly was reminded what it is like to have a tiny gnome for a child.

I stopped the Nystatin again, and guess what? My happy little chubster returned! Matt's thrush seems to be doing just fine, and regardless of who believes me, I am telling you right now - Nystatin causes horrible gas in babies! (If you Google it, you'll find other moms that agree.) Matt began feeding well again just in time to slam into the seven-week growth spurt. I have been a feeding machine for a few days. But you know what? I don't even MIND, so long as the boy eats. Sigh.