14 hours in the pediatric ER- the most grateful I’ve ever been for breastfeeding

mss91z28

New member
Idk if there’s much of a point to this post-There’s so much on my mind right now and I’m just kind of using reddit like a diary to process my emotions. Here’s one of them.

It’s a long story but on Friday afternoon we found out my 6 month old daughter’s femur is broken. It likely happened on Monday on her first full time day with our nanny share. We still don’t know what happened but needless to say we will no longer be employing that nanny. It took awhile to figure out what happened because there was a lot of other stuff going on with her health-wise: teething, constipation, 6mo vaccines plus flu and covid. We’d been in contact with our pediatrician several times that week and those were her explanations as well. But I still felt like something more was wrong.

On Friday I made her another appointment to see the pediatrician because she wasn’t moving her leg and it was just really weird. I went in thinking I was going to be told it was just prolonged vaccine reaction or something. The appointment was at 1 and I hadn’t eaten lunch. I expected to be back home within an hour. I didn’t have any baby supplies except our “light” diaper bag (the one I bring for short trips that just has a few diapers, wipes, and a changing pad), our stroller, and Sophie the giraffe.

Our pediatrician decided to order X-rays out of an abundance of caution so from her office I went directly to another location where x-rays were taken. We were there for a couple hours. Then I got a call from her telling me the scans revealed a broken femur and I needed to go directly to the pediatric emergency room.

What followed was an absolute nightmare. Hours of waiting after triage, then we were given a bed but it was in a hallway, right next to a busy intersection. It was noisy, the lights were so bright, we had no privacy, and she was so poked and prodded. The type of injury she has can only be caused by a high impact event or deliberate harm, so it was a mandatory report to our states CPS. So we also had to endure tons of questions from social workers and she had to get full body X-rays to check for other injuries. Not complaining because I know it was necessary, but it was really awful.

But throughout this whole ordeal I never had to worry about the baby going hungry. I never struggled to comfort her. She was able to sleep soundly despite the bright lights and noises and chaos. Because I was there with my boobs. I just curled up around her on the hospital bed all night, constantly nursing. My back is killing me, my nipples are raw, but I’m so grateful. We were totally unprepared for this situation. We didn’t have adult food, no phone chargers, no changes of clothes, no sleep sack, nothing. But I’m never apart from the ultimate baby comfort tool, because they are part of my body. I don’t know how we would have survived it otherwise.

I’ve never been a gung ho breastfeeding advocate. I wanted to try but wasn’t married to the idea. We combo fed at the beginning and still occasionally give her some formula. I don’t think any decision a parent makes about how to feed their baby is wrong, as long as it works for them and the baby is fed and cared for. But breastfeeding saved us that night. And I’m just so grateful for that.
 
@mss91z28 This is both horrible and reassuring. I hope that nanny is criminally prosecuted. Femur fractures are almost always non-accidental trauma.
 
@novs Also it’s harder to break a baby’s bone than an adult’s because they’re more flexible. Also the femur is the most difficult to break bone in the whole body!!

The injury would’ve been significant!

So sorry for OP, and glad that boob magic was there to provide comfort
 
@novs Mine fractured her femur at 6 months by rolling off our bed. The doctors figured she landed on her knees and that's what likely caused the break. It was a horrible ordeal in the ER but her recovery was super fast and she hasn't had any issues since! She is now 4 years old and doesn't remember any of it thankfully but we are still traumatized remembering the ordeal
 
@annalerner May I ask what type of cast or brace they used for healing? My daughter still just has a temporary splint— we’ll be meeting with the pediatric orthopedic team on Monday
 
@mss91z28 I just wanted to share my story to maybe ease your mind. It's possible your child wasn't abused, but maybe had a fall. Our bed is higher than normal, about hotel bed height. Still sketchy the nanny didn't immediately take action and let you know.
 
@annalerner Yeah our working hypothesis is that she accidentally dropped the baby or something and thought she was fine so didn’t tell us. However we kept talking to the nanny about how she didn’t seem quite right and the nanny kept dismissing it. Like she would scream hysterically during diaper changes whereas previously she loved them and would giggle the whole time. We mentioned it to the nanny and the nanny said most kids hate diaper changes so it’s surprising she’s gone this long without screaming during them.

At the VERY least it’s neglect.
 
@mss91z28 Yes, it's absolutely neglect! I just wanted to maybe help in case you were having horrifying visions of her physically abusing your baby. I mean it's terrible no matter how you look at it, but hopefully nothing worse than an accidental fall happened to her. I dont remember the type of fracture. I think it was a very small one just above the knee. It did not go through the whole bone, just a small crack. The harness sounds really intense. Hopefully she adjusts. I think we only needed the cast for like 5 weeks, it was really short because babies heal so quickly. Fingers crossed for you guys!
 
@mss91z28 There’s SO many unfortunate things you guys dealt with at the hospital, from the high-traffic hospital bed to bright lights, but I think the worst part is the nanny. Accidents happen, but not SAYING what happened? 😕 poor baby was in pain.
 
@mss91z28 I know this is old now, and I'm no nursing mother, but I wanted to add, I was a baby with a broken femur. They never really found out how it happened, but it was discovered the same way, screaming during diaper changes. I was in a hip to toe cast for a few months, and believe it or not, took my first step the day they took it off. I'm 27 now, and my leg is just fine. You're doing just fine by your baby, and I'm glad she's going to have a better caretaker from here on in, and I'm sorry you've had to go through this.

I just wanted to say you're okay, and doing your best. Baby will be okay.
 
@loubird Thank you! It’s nice to hear other baby broken bone recovery stories.

Things are much better now. She only had a cast for 2 weeks, and was fully healed in about 5 weeks. CPS investigated and found that the nanny fell down the stairs while holding her and didn’t tell us.

But pretty much things are back to normal. She took a little longer than typical to learn to sit up and crawl, but now she’s pulling up to stand ahead of time. You’d never know she’d had such a serious injury not too long ago.
 
@mss91z28 Yes we got the temporary splint in the er and then got into the specialist the next day, she decided a soft sided cast was best because she wasn't crawling yet so she would be fine without the hard sided cast. It wasn't very different than the splint really, we were able to remove it for bathing and taking care of her skin. here is a pic of it
 
@annalerner Ah interesting. The doctors at the ED said they’d probably put her in a pavlik harness, which I’m kind of having trouble wrapping my head around. Your baby’s cast looks more like what I originally imagined. What type of fracture was it, do you remember?
 
@pollard Ohh- hip dysplasia? I have a huge list of questions lol. Was it able to still car fry your baby around? We’re there any special considerations for car seats?
 
@mss91z28 Yes! Caught within 24 hours of birth and relatively minor so she could have baths and be out of the harness for 1 out of 23 hours a day. She was in the harness at 2 weeks. It was really hard for us but the baby barely noticed! It was easy to carry her around still, breastfeeding took a little adjustment just to get the angles right but diaper changes actually easier because it was harder for her to wiggle away! 6 months is a little different but her ortho was quick to tell us how fast they adapted, and he was right. She actually ended up stronger than other babies her age from the isolation workouts she got from kicking into the harness!

We unstrapped the straps connecting her legs to her hips so she could safely be strapped into our car seat - our orthopedist had us put her in the seat to confirm it would be OK, it just counted towards her 1 hour of free time. Obviously it may be different for you all but your ortho will definitely be able to advise, just make sure you bring carseat into the room if you can.

ETA: it is so sad to see them all strapped up but our girl didn’t care at all, she ended up taking longer to roll but truly was within the milestone months - just later than average maybe? but was easier to put down in the crib when she was in it and then the rhino kicker at night, and other than the rolling she walked on time/early and on her 1st birthday a) decided walking was the only mode of transport and b) got a completely clean bill of health from her orthopedist.
 
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