My bitch has three week old puppies. I`ve just dropped her off at the vets and had to leave her - it`s looking like she may have eclampsia!!

Has anyone had experience of this? How serious etc. Regarding the puppies are I right in thinking that they will need feeding every 4 hours.

Thanks

Normally, as far as I was aware, an injection of calcium puts matters right in a matter of minutes.

Just brought her home. her sugar and calcium levels are fine, but a couple of her teets are going hard so the vet said it is an early sign mastitus. She`s had a shot of anti inflammatries and antibiotics, but shes still very weak and can barely walk.

Any recommendations?

Thanks

Also, the vet said to let her carrying feeding pups if she can??? Any advice

Thanks

I had a bitch come down with eclampsia 3 days post-whelping. The vet gave her a calcium injection and I had to give her a calcium supplement daily. The pups weren't taken from her and she fed them as normal; all 10 survived and were very healthy.

When their breasts and/or teats (it's usually the rearmost ones) start getting hot and hard I used to hold a hot damp flannel on them to soften them and take off some of the milk before encouraging the pups to feed from them to take more.

When Molly's teats went a little bit hard, I held a wet hot flannel on them (not too hot) and then put a greedy pup on them. I did this twice a day for a couple of days, checked them daily and repeated if/when necessary. It worked for her :)
HTH

Excellent advice from everyone re the mastitis. You need to check her teats several times a day and hold a puppy on to any that look as though they are getting too full. Once they start to swell, the teats become more difficult to suckle from so the pups will move along until they find easy pickings, so the inflamed teat just gets worse. As for the eclamsia, I ALWAYS have calcium+vitamin D tablets on hand when I have a litter. At the first sign of symptoms, twitching, frothing at the mouth, stiff legs, a faraway look in the eyes, crush 1 or 2 tablets, depending on the breed, into milk and give it to the bitch, then get her to the vet immediately. The danger times are 3 to 5 days after whelping and about 3 weeks after whelping. When my bitches are nursing puppies, I always give them 1/2 pint of semi-skimmed milk every 4 hours, (medium sized breed), and a small high protein feed every 4 hours, (alternately, so they are getting something every 2 hours). As I sleep with mum and pups for the first 3 weeks, I do this through the night as well, (and people who've never done it think breeding a litter is money for old rope).