A frustrating event occurred today at work. I helped a woman breastfeed after a Cesarean section and baby latched and nursed very well. This was a mom who nursed her first baby for almost a year.

Towards the end of the day I heard that the woman had spiked a temperature to 101 and so the pediatrician had ordered a workup on the baby: CBC, CRP, blood cultures. Further orders included that the mother must pump and dump her milk and if her temperature rose to 101 again, the infant must go to the NICU for isolation from the mom.

I called the pediatrician who became very defensive and said it was the mother and her aunt who were expressing concern over the baby's wellbeing. In essence he was only  taking extra precautions to "protect" the baby because if he didn't and anything happened to the baby he would be held liable. Of course he wanted the baby to breastfeed and of course he knows that breast milk is best but he was just temporarily taking the baby off breastmilk and "if necessary"  isolating the baby from mom as an extra precaution. Then if everything is fine ... back to breastfeeding - no problem, no damage done.

Mother's temp was actually down to normal, so I got him to agree that it was OK for the baby to nurse.  Then I told him that I would give the family some literature to reassure them about maternal illness and breastfeeding.
I gave the family a copy of Jack Newman's  You Should Continue Breastfeeding http://www.kellymom.com/newman/illness_mother_baby_01-03.html (updated in 2003) and of course I left a copy for the ped in an envelope. I also wrote a note to say that along with our role of supporting and assisting with breastfeeding, we also have the role of educating patients and staff and that any time he wanted us to allay his patient's fears with educational handouts to please contact us  ... we have a wealth of material and we're always happy to fulfill that part of our role as LC's.  ;-)  ;-)

I do hope he reads the handout.

Does anyone have any good ideas about how to handle such a situation?














Cathy

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