(The following story is fictional. Should you see yourself in the Queen then kudos to you!)
Once upon a time (as recent as a moment ago), there was a Queen who gave birth to a Princess. What made her a Queen was that her partner called her one, and what made their daughter a Princess was because they thought her so. Aside from the nicknames, the Queen and the Princess were not unlike any other woman or baby girl.
Shortly after the Princess was born the Queen tried to breastfeed her but the Princess wouldn’t latch. The Queen was disappointed but knew she would try again later. The baby slept for a couple hours and then she tried to nurse her again. Again the Princess wouldn’t latch.
“Isn’t she nursing yet?” inquired a nurse coming into the room. “She looks hungry. I can get her a bottle of formula.”
“Oh, no!” replied the Queen. “She’s fine.”
The nurse looked at the Queen with concern. I’m going to come back in one hour and if that baby hasn’t nursed she’s getting a bottle. You don’t want her to starve do you?” And with that the nurse left.
Rattled, but not to be disuaded the Queen tried to nurse the Princess again. Still no luck. Now the Princess was screaming and all the rocking and cuddling and shushing didn’t work. The Queen asked her partner to take the baby for a short walk so she could collect her thoughts and figure out what to do. The Queen had had two other children. All of them had been breastfed. The Queen had attended numerous La Leche League meetings and was passionate about breastfeeding. She knew there must be a way to nourish her daughter without resorting to formula. Then she remembered. She decided to hand express some colostrum into a spoon. Satisfied with the teaspoon she made, she fed it to the Princess when she returned. The Princess took the spoon, swallowed the colostrum and went back to sleep.
A new mom in the bed over, who hadn’t seen what had happened but who had overheard the commotion with the nurse and crying baby, leaned over and whispered to the Queen, “My baby didn’t latch either so I let the nurses give him some formula. One bottle can’t hurt, is my opinion. Then the baby sleeps and you get some well deserved rest too.”
The woman next to her piped in “My baby latched but my milk hasn’t come in yet. I told the nurses I was concerned by how much he sleeps so they recommended I give him a bottle too. Aren’t you worried your baby might be getting hungry?” The two women looked at each other with a kind of solidarity sympathy.
Ah, the comraderie in ignorance, thought the Queen, who had been hoping to avoid this kind of confrontation. She took a deep breath and said to the first woman, “My baby is only a few hours old. Her stomach is the size of a chick pea. How did your son fare when you gave him the bottle?”
The woman looked confused by this reply. “Uh,” she stammered. “He threw most of it up, but he did get a little down. Why?”
“He threw it up because a day old baby can’t fit that amount of formula in his stomach,” said the Queen pointing to the empty bottle on the side table. “and tomorrow, she continued, his stomach will only gave grown to the size of a grape. So that’s how much milk he will need tomorrow. There’s the perfect amount of colostrum in your breasts to satisfy his hunger.” She smiled weakly at the woman. “I didn’t mean to put you off. I just hate how uninformed so many maternity nurses are. And I’m sorry to tell you this but one bottle of formula does make a difference. It introduces a strain of bacteria to his intestines that would otherwise not be there and it can affect his immune system.”
The woman looked horrified. “What should I do?” she asked.
“Tell them to help you with your latch,” offered the Queen, “or ask to speak to the hospital’s lactation consultant. Or just relax and let the baby latch when he’s ready. That’s what I’m trying to do. This one is my third. They do catch on eventually. They have to eat right? And before formula came along babies breastfed. I can’t imagine many babies died from from failure to latch correctly in the first few days.” She turned to the second woman. “How old is your son?” she inquired.
“He’s just over three days old.”
“You don’t need to be worried that your milk hasn’t come in yet. It will. It always does. Some women’s milk just takes a little longer to come in than others, but it’s still normal to wait up to five days. And he’s getting all he needs from your colostrum too. His tummy is only the size of a walnut so he still doesn’t need too much. I guarantee it! Oh look, here comes my little Princess!”
The Princess was awake and peaceful now. The Queen had disapated most of her stress from the earlier incident with the nurse by talking with her neighbours and felt quite relaxed. “Put her on my belly,” she instructed her partner.
The baby lay on her chest with her little head turned to one side. Her lips turned into a little birdie beak and she began to root. Back and forth her head turned searching for food until at last she sensed what she wanted. She moved towards it her mouth open wide, and finally, with a smack of her lips she latched and began to suck. Her partner looked down on the Queen and the Princess with amazement and joy. A nurse who had been watching quietly from behind the curtain sucked in her breath. “Well, I never!” she stated. They all watched in wonder as the Princess nursed for a few minutes on each side and then fell asleep in milked-out bliss.
“Well, I guess I can cancel the formula,” said the nurse, turning to go. “For now.”
“My Princess won’t be needing any formula,” said the Queen. “This baby was born healthy, with a healthy weight to a healthy mom. She is breastfeeding now and I will continue to do so. She doesn’t need formula to fill her up because her stomach is the size of a chick pea. Tomorrow it will be the size of a grape and the next day the size of a walnut!” She took a breath and went on.”Furthermore, although I do hope you already know this, my breasts make colostrum to provide antibodies to my baby, not to serve the nutritive equivalent of a five course meal! My baby needs to sleep and adjust to the world, she does not need to be force fed formula. By giving these babies formula you’re interfering in their breastfeeding relationships with their mothers. You’re “f-ing” with these mom’s perfectly fine milk supply levels and setting them up to fail. As well you’re taking away from these precious babies their chance to receive nature’s finest immunity building substance known to people-kind! Tell me you already know all this and you’re just being forced by your manager or formula companies to give these babies bottles and I’ll stop yelling at you and go yell at someone else instead!”
The nurse was pale. “Uh,” she stammered. “Uhhhh…” and then without another word she turned and flew out of the room.
“Okay, settle down sweetie,” whispered the partner, “You’re going to wake the baby.”
There was clapping from behind the curtain. The Queen started to cry.
“What’s wrong?” asked her partner in alarm. “Are you okay?”
“I’m just so glad she latched,” said the Queen, as her shoulders heaved and she wiped away her tears.
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Tags: breast milk, colostrum, formula, immune system, milk supply, nurses
Posted by Breastfeeding Infants, Children's Health, Health Care System, Pregnancy & Birth, Uncategorized Subscribe to RSS feed
Wow!!! Well done.
We are going to have to start an anthology of breastfeeding parodies of children’s books.
Annie @ PhD in Parenting’s last blog post..Wordless Wednesday: Happy Canada Day Lactavistas
I teared up, seriously. I know parodies are supposed to make you laugh but….yeah… *sigh*
I didn’t know that about the size of the stomach at birth. It makes SUCH a good point. Thank you so much. Really. This story is lovely and wonderful and really spot-on…even if it’s a parody
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[...] The Princess and the Chick Pea (and the Grape and the Walnut) [...]
That was a beautiful story. I really appreciated the visuals of the chickpea, grape and walnut. I have to comment on this part:
“And before formula came along babies breastfed. I can’t imagine many babies died from from failure to latch correctly in the first few days..”
And before formula came along babies were born at home without pesky nurses to interfere! Midwives always promote breastfeeding. I’m not sure what your rates are in Canada, but if more mothers chose the midwifery health care model they wouldn’t run into this problem. For those who truly need hospital births for high risk and C-sections, all the more need for nurses to be trained to support breastfeeding.
I’m not sure if you’ve posted about homebirths or birthing center births in the past (I’ll have to check your archives), but I would love to hear more from you about how it inter-relates with breast feeding. I love your blog and your mission. It ties in so well with natural, drug-free, midwife attended births
Superb post Melodie!
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@Annie – Thanks. Sounds like a fun idea to me too! I wonder what we can do with Jack and the Beanstalk or Little Red Riding Hood. Hmm…
@Jenny – I know hey? It really does put it into perspcective. It did for me too when I learned it.
@PureMothers – I really wanted the pictures because the visual is so important for this story. I had hoped to take my own picture of someone holding a chickpea, a grape and a walnut but walnuts in the shell are very hard to find this time of year.
I’m totally with you on the midwife assisted births. I had a team of midwives for both of my births. I had a c-section with my first and a homebirth for the second. I wouldn’t have done it any other way. Before I posted this I actually consulted with a maternity nurse/LC – actually it was Melissa from Stork Stories. My hospital birth experience with nurses went really well actually. Our local hospital is very very pro-breastfeeding but I read and hear of so many sad stories that sound more like this one so I wanted to check with a US mat nurse to make sure this would sound legit. She gave me the thumbs up – which in a way is kind of sad. Nurses need better training in breastfeeding. In BC where I live nurses don’t even need to take a breastfeeding education class. It’s an elective! So if that nurse who graduates didn’t take that course she can still work as a maternity nurse later. Stupid isn’t it?
Very nice!! Beautiful, funny, and so sad too!
love the story!
I’m so glad our doula gave us a sheet with the “size of the stomach” examples because I was so worried about not having enough colostrum/milk for our baby!
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I love this sooo much! My mother and sister kept trying to get me to give my daughter formula before my milk came in and I just knew the colostrum had to be enough, right?? well now I really know. Wonderful story! Women need to just believe in their bodies, our little babies dont need huge bottles of formula!!!
Great story! And very informative, too.
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The story may be fictional, but all of us (I think) are wishing we could be the Queen. I knew how much I wanted to breastfeed, but after a long labour and pushy nurses, my daughter ended up with 2 bottles of formula at the hospital. I wish I had had more conviction to be able to tell my pushy nurse to back off! (Actually, I requested a different nurse, and the pushy nurse blew me off and chalked it up to a “tired new mom”).
Great post, as always. You are such a wealth of information and inspiration!
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Melodie, I just added you to my blog roll. Your posts are inspirational.
http://www.puremothers.com
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lovely story Melodie! thanks for sharing. this is a very interesting way of bringing up the problems new moms face especially with unsupportive health professionals
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This is sweet and aggravating — an accurate portrayal of those first few days in the hospital. If only all mothers had the opportunity, not just the knowledge, to refuse formula. My son was given formula in the nursery without my permission and I will never forgive the nurses for that. We have been breastfeeding for 18 months, no thanks to the doctors and nurses.
I love the variety of posts on your blog. Keep it up!
This makes me sad, only because with my first I let a nurse give her a syringe full of formula when she was screaming on her second night. It was the nurse’s suggestion and I didn’t know better. Luckily, I nursed her for over a year. Two years later, with my second, I asked the (same) nurse if a lactation consultant was on duty — I wanted her to check the latch — she said, “no, she already went home. Do you want a formula supplement?” Of course, I said no. What a b!t@h! I know she’s doing that to mom after mom every night in that maternity ward. Just so sad.
What a beautiful story! You should be writing non-fiction – this is wonderful!! Thanks so much for sharing it.
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Wow, beautiful story! Well done. I totally had that problem with DD when she was born, i.e. latching issues. It went on for 36 hours, until she finally accepted the nipple shield. Which is far from ideal! I was fortunate that at the hospital where I gave birth, they didn’t force formula on us – although in my lack of information such as this and my overwhelmed state from a frantic baby, we did give her an ounce or 2. I realize that there was so much I didn’t know, even though I thought I knew what I did. You never stop learning! And unfortunately for us, we don’t have the support system and generational knowledge that our great-grand-parents had, or that mothers from more traditional cultures have.
Next time will certainly be different!!
Thanks for the great story.
This is so inspiring especially for new moms. Can I repost this on my blog? I’ll put your link there, too. Thanks so much!
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Brilliant! Thank you!
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[...] go read The Princess and the Chick Pea on Breastfeeding Moms [...]
[...] with formula for our babies. They are the ones who make up our baby’s first bottle of formula when they think our babies aren’t getting enough breast milk. They are the ones who are supposed to know the answers, inform us, tell us what to do and where to [...]
This brought back memories of when our daughter was born! The nurses kept nagging since my daughter hadn’t nursed in the first 2-3 hours of her birth! She in fact had nursed a little when she was just a few minutes old and then she wanted to sleep and rest after a wonderful yet exhausting birth! She was fine from then on and did eventually latch and grew to be healthy and thriving and is still happily nursing at 12 months old! This story was very enjoyable to read and encouraging! Thank you for sharing…
That is a great story. I wish every mom would stand up for her baby like that
After my first birth, a c-section like yours, they gave my daughter formula while I was in the recovery room. She didn’t latch well after that but they got me a nipple shield. The 2nd night she was crying so the nurse offered to get me some formula. I knew the size of a newborns stomach and it was on the wall beside me but I was so tired and alone so I let them. Thankfully that was the last ounce of formula she ever got. We breastfed for 13 months without any problems no thanks to the hospital’s help
Kelly@ Parenting Princesses’s last blog post..Mostly Wordless Wednesday
Ps. With my 2nd daughter nobody bother us about breastfeeding or formula feeding but I was so ready to throw out a lecture about baby’s and their stomach sizes
Kelly@ Parenting Princesses’s last blog post..Mostly Wordless Wednesday
What a fabulous fairy tale! I know I’m late to the party, but I need to share this far & wide.
“And they nursed happily ever after.”
Thanks @Dou-la-la. I’m glad you enjoyed it. Please do!
Lovely story and great message! Thanks.
[...] The Princess and the Chick Pea [...]
Great story – it doesn’t take much for a woman to be informed on what is right and best for baby. I will be so armed and not allow any formula in my baby’s tummy!
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I love this story and will share on Twitter and FB now. I hope this will encourage women to learn more and advocate for themselves.
[...] I just saw a post that my midwife put on Facebook about the size of a baby’s stomach when it’s first born. They covered this in the [...]
what a wonderful and inspiring story.I learnt a lot from this !
I had a premmie twin that refused to latch …I am sure it was because he was given a bottle almost the first day or two (alternatively along with nasogastric tube)and ‘tape’ that obscured his lip movement.
He didn’t breastfeed till 5 months but I still expressed for that 5 months.
His twin brother on the other hand did latch but they kept telling me not to BF so much (or at all)- I was tiring him (at 36-37 wks and 2.9kg – 6lbs8) and they kept us in hospital longer because they declared him a lazy (bottle) feeder. It was overnight when I wasn’t there to BF.
WE were allowed to leave finally only after ‘agreeing’ to bottle feed him (EBM) …I never ever did !
They are still breastfeeding x 2 day at 3 yrs !
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Wow…this is so funny because it actually happened to me in the hospital. They were trying to get me to finger feed him more than the milk I had pumped but I looked at them and told them that his stomach was only the size of a grape and the nurse walked away. My baby was content and sleeping away.
Can you do one about extended breastfeeding? Please? And by extended, I mean past two years. Two years is what the WHO recommends, so I don’t consider that extended.
My first had two little cups of formula in the hospital and I don’t regret it. I was badly injured and it hurt just to sit; it took days to figure out how to nurse lying down. My second, on the other hand, nursed just minutes after birth. That’s what they should do with every healthy baby (my first was healthy, but they weren’t sure after my difficult delivery and I was so drugged up I didn’t try to nurse when they brought her back). It just astounded me that he knew exactly what to do, but of course he did! That’s how babies survive!
This post makes me so sad, but gives me hope for the next child. I let the nurses give our daughter formula because my milk wasn’t coming in. The convinced me to continue giving her formula and I did for the first 10 days of her life because my milk didn’t come in for 5 days. I’ve always regretted it and I’ve hunted around trying to figure out what to do if it happens with baby #2, but could never get a clear answer. Thank you for writing this! It gives me hope for the next one. It also makes me so so sad that I let those nurses convince me to give her formula when I didn’t want it!
Thanks again.
[...] http://www.breastfeedingmomsun.....nd-the-w... [...]
[...] Breastfeeding Moms Unite – The Princess and the Chick Pea: A great complement to my Would you, could you nurse in public post, this narrative by Melodie is all about support, attempted sabotage, and perseverance during those early days. [...]