for sharing that terrific post from Esther Grunis!
Esther Grunis ([log in to unmask]) said: Subject : Supplements for bottle
fed babies
When I walked into the nursery this morning, one of the nurses said she has
a "naughty" baby, ie. one who had lost too much weight. According to his
chart, he had lost almost 8% of his birth weight by day 2. I flipped the
page to see what had been happening with the breastfeeding and guess
what...he is a bottle baby, and never got breast milk in his life, poor
kid. I told the nurse that he is a bottler, and I would go call the mom to
give him a supplement. She asked me what supplement and I said a breast,
of course. She looked at me like I was totally nuts and said "but she is
bottle feeding." So I answered that normally in our hospital, when a
breastfed baby loses too much weight "we" give him a supplementary bottle
of ABM, so obviously if a bottle fed baby is losing too much weight we have
to give him a breast. But she argued with me that the mother has chosen
not to breastfeed and we have no right to force her to do so. So I argued
that this is true, but when a breastfed baby loses too much weight even
though the mother has chosen not to bottle feed, we scare her into giving a
supp bottle to avoid intravenous feeds, we frighten her that her baby will
dehydrate or worse, and sometimes we even say that her baby will have to
remain in the hospital even long after the mom has gone home, and thus we
are forcing her to give bottles even though she has chosen to breastfeed.
She said that she just couldn't force the mom to breastfeed.
(By his time, what I was saying was starting to sink in, and I smiled as if
I were joking, but I was dead serious.) "And now you understand why it is
so difficult and illogical for me to tell a mom to give an artificial
supplement, even if the baby is losing weight. " (They always beg me to
convince the mom to give a bottle, because if I say it they listen to me,)
So I asked her to teach me what she does when a bottled baby loses weight.
Her answer was logical: - ask the mom how the baby is feeding, if he is
sleeping through feeds -watch how she feeds him to see if there is a
problem with technique - sit with the mom and explain how to hold the baby
while he feeds, see if he is sucking properly, etc. (sound
familiar?)--check to see i if he doesn't have another physical problem - if
all the above are OK, try another formula.
So I asked her why our hospital gives preferential treatment to bottle fed
babies. She said of course we don't. And I said if only we would follow
these simple steps when a breastfed baby lost weight, before we crammed a
bottle into his little mouth, we could make a lot of moms and babies much
happier. She said that I really opened her eyes with that "game" I played
with her. We have to start using two separate thinking methods with
breastfed and bottle fed babies. And not cross methods so easily. There
have been cases where we have asked mothers who chose not to breastfeed to
reconsider because baby can't digest anything else, but only after trying
everything else first. We have to convince them to take the same stand
with breastfeeders.
--
Nikki Lee RN, BSN, Mother of 2, MS, IBCLC, CCE, CIMI, ANLC, CKC
Author:* Complementary and Alternative Medicine in Breastfeeding Therapy*
www.nikkileehealth.com
https://www.facebook.com/nikkileehealth
*Get my FREE webinar series*
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