Comments on: Monday Musings: How Hospitals Contribute to Lower Breastfeeding Rates

By: Monday Musings: Changing Culture | Breastfeeding Moms Unite

Monday Musings: Changing Culture | Breastfeeding Moms Unite — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:01:39 +0000

[...] fellow citizens for awhile, but then I surf off onto twitter or some news sites, and I read about hospitals contributing to lower breastfeeding rates, formula companies sponsoring health conferences, moms getting kicked out of pools and off buses, [...]

By: Monday Musings: The Root Of The Mommy Breastfeeding Wars | Breastfeeding Moms Unite

Fri, 10 Jul 2009 04:49:53 +0000

[...] problems down the road, monitor our progress, give encouragement, etc. The problem is, it’s the hospital-based health care professionals who are contributing to lower breastfeeding rates in our [...]

By: Pure Mothers

Pure Mothers — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 21:31:43 +0000

Thanks for pointing me to this post. Maternity nurses should be required to take breast feeding training. Especially considering all of the studies that show breast fed babies have less ear infections, respiratory distress, etc. It helps the healthcare system over all when babies are healthy. And, that starts with breast milk – not formula.

My milk didn’t come in until the morning of day 6! Thank God I didn’t give birth in a hospital or my baby would have gotten formula. I consulted a lactation consultant. But only after I had used my breast pump to stimulate my supply. And boy did it ever! It taught me about supply and demand b/c I ended up making too much. It eventually leveled off once I stopped pumping for a while.

Have you posted about nursing strikes? My baby went on one at 4 months of age for no apparent reason. I had some pumped milk frozen for my mom to feed him so my husband and I could go out. I ended up using all of it and resorted to 2 days of formula. – but very small bottles – as I was working with a lactation consultant. I cringe whenever I see a mom with an 8oz bottle and a newborn flat on his/her back being “force fed” all that formula. Who tells these moms to give them that much?

At the end of 4 days I tried different positions and let my stress go and he finally latched on again and resumed nursing. I was so stressed thinking our nursing relationship had ended. I was heart broken. Thankfully a friend of mine who doesn’t have a child said “maybe he’s just not hungry right now”. And I relaxed and looked at him differently – like a human being who may want more on one day and less on another – like us. Who may want to sleep 12 hours one day and 10 the next. I had it in my mind that they need to nurse 12 x in a 24 hour period and then 8-10 in the same time period, etc. I was being so rigid. When I let go, he came back!

Pure Mothers’s last blog post..Plastic Packaging Awareness

By: Jenny

Jenny — Tue, 02 Jun 2009 00:49:35 +0000

i felt that the hospital i gave birth at was two-faced. sure they had a lactation center and lactation consultants but i didn’t feel that they provided good support. the nurses were uninformed – one nurse told me that pacifier use was ok – no issues with nipple confusion AT ALL (that nipple confusion was just because of paranoid parents) and when we were discharged, we got an ENFAMIL hospital bag with free samples.
later on, when I was having trouble with the latch and rented a pump, the lactation consultant at the hospital subtlely sold me a wrap that i didn’t really need (this wrap was used 2x) by telling me that to successfully breastfeed, i needed to put the baby in the wrap constantly. i just felt that the hospital’s consultants had a one-size-fits-all solution to breastfeeding issues and didn’t even attempt to listen to the actual problems each individual moms had.
it also did not help that during the free breastfeeding support group meeting in the hospital (my daughter was about 5 days old then), there were a couple of moms with older babies (6mos, 10mos) who where saying their babies were never as small as my baby.

Jenny’s last blog post..A Nursing Mom’s Shopping Guide in Manila – Nursing Bras

By: Kelly

Kelly — Thu, 30 Apr 2009 07:18:25 +0000

I'm lucky that the hospital didn't ruin breast-feeding for me. I had a c-section and didn't get to see my daughter for 4 hours!! My (clueless) husband allowed them to give her some formula to "warm" her up since they had let her get too cold. I gave her some more fomula after a nurse told me she was still hungry. I knew how small her stomach was (it was even on the wall) but I was so tired and I just needed to sleep so I did. Thankfully that was all the formula she ever got. Also instead of helping me latch properly they gave me a nipple shield which I then had to use for months. Kelly’s last blog post..Wordless Wednesday

By: How To Become A Breastfeeding Support Professional | Breastfeeding Moms Unite

Mon, 20 Apr 2009 05:13:23 +0000

[...] In my opinion, this is why moms have the breastfeeding problems in hospitals that they do. See Monday Musings: How Hospitals Contribute to Lower Breastfeeding Rates. If you have a problem with breastfeeding, the first people you should contact for the most [...]

By: Melodie

Melodie — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 21:31:52 +0000

@AmberI too have attended LLL meetings where nurses-in-training attended. When I asked them why they didn’t get this stuff covered in the classroom they said the instructors didn’t have time! Shows you how important they consider breastfeeding to be hey? So instead they let the leaders “teach” them. Might be a good start but bf’ing101 needs to be taught in the classroom!

@Kimberly – the litigation is something I didn’t think about, but I believe you are right. However, if we can make basic breastfeeding knowledge and practice standard across the board for medical staff and the public then worries about suing shouldn’t be such a big problem. But maybe I am being too naive….

@mum2abc – I love the midwife input. Thank you!

@crunchy – Nurses need to be able to make the mom feel better about the trying times in the early days by normalizing them. I think new moms feel like they are failing when baby doesn’t latch right away or has problems feeding. But if we knew that most of our peers are having the same issues that peace of mind might help repair our insecurities right there.

@Dawn and PrettySprinkles – thank you for sharing your stories

Melodie’s last blog post..Poll Results: Moms Who Don’t Cover Do Breastfeed Longer