CDC Report:Hospitals don't do enough to promote BFing

[rprav8r]

Originally Posted by kedss

Our hospital was great too, they didn't send any formula home, and beyond the normal checking up on us/changeover of nurses let me nurse her without trying to teach me how.

I delivered DS at the same hospital, and agree that they were awesome. LC's on duty 7 days/wk, absolutely no suggestion of formula once I said we were BFing, lots of kudos for BFing. There was a sample can of formula in the formula co. goody bag, but the nurses told us to open the bag (it was sealed) before we left, and leave the formula in the room.

After hearing about others' experiences, I am so glad I delivered where I did, esp since my milk did not come in before I left the hospital.

[JTsMom]

I had absolutely no bf support in the hospital when DS was born. His sugar was low- they gave him glucose water. Then they gave him formula- twice IIRC. I kept saying I wanted to try to get him to the breast ASAP, but it took a couple of hours b/c they wanted to get me to my room first.

The nurses didn't help with positioning or latch at all- even though I kept asking them to check and see if I was doing things correctly. Thank goodness I read as much as I had before the birth, or I would have been totally lost. We roomed in (the hospital doesn't even have a nursery), and the nurses would ask how long DS stayed on each side for, but that was it.

DS was transferred out at 24 hours. An LC never came to see me, even though I stayed for another 20ish hours. My nurse at that point did help me figure out pumping, but it took her a while, so I'm sure it wasn't something she had done too many times.

The only positive thing I can say was that a NICU nurse (who I spoke with for all of 30 mins while they were prepping DS for transfer) told me that pumping was a very powerful thing I could do for DS, and that gave me a big boost.


After the transfer, it was pretty dismal too. DS hadn't eaten the entire time we had been seperated (b/c of testing and b/c they didn't know if he'd need immediate surgery), and he was starving by that point. When I walked in and saw him, he had a pacifier and was sucking away. That, and the bottles he got subsequently led to really serious nipple confusion. His nurse convinced me that the best thing to do was to get fluids into him so that we could see if his kidneys were functioning well, so that we could go home. My milk wasn't in yet, so after I'd nurse him, we'd supplement with formula. In ICU, they are so big on scheduling everything, it made it really difficult to nurse on demand, but I did my best, and I pumped as well. I tried to stay with DS as much as possible, but I had to get a couple hours of sleep overnight (you can't sleep in the ICU), so I slept in the parents' room, and would try to wake myslef up to pump and check on him every couple of hours. Twice I caught them giving him formula instead of the milk I had worked so hard to pump b/c "he just wouldn't wait for us to heat it up". I was livid.

By the time we got home, the nipple confusion was so severe, and my confidence was so shattered, I thought we'd never get past it. I was too afraid to call LLL b/c I thought they would judge me b/c of the supplementing (which is ridiculous, but that's what I believed at the time), so I called the LC associated with the hospital where DS was born. She basically just told me to keep trying. Not helpful.

Eventually, we got through it, but it was REALLY hard, and REALLY scary. It was especially important that DS gain weight well b/c of his condition, so the whole thing was very stressful.

Then, to top it all off, when he had his surgery at just shy of 3 months, he was unable to nurse for over a week. After that, he ate very little. I'm the world's worst pumper, and how in the world I managed to maintain any supply through that, is a miracle. Nobody at the hospital could give me any advice that helped, and the LC was out of town the whole week. I cried and cried b/c I was so terrified that I was going to lose my supply, and ruin the one thing that DS loved more than anything. Once of the nurses saw me, and called a friend of hers who had a lot of bf knowledge. She talked to me for about 15 mins, and gave me enough info to keep me going.

So, in both instances, the only help I got was just by accidental encounters with a special nurse.