I was given a draft of a new policy for our NICU to review. Essentially it
deals with advancing feedings, volume and calorie content. Breastmilk is
designated as food of choice. However, it goes on to list contraindications
to using breastmilk in certain cases. I would like to know how other NICU's
handle these situations. The ones I find concerning are (1) mastitis-may use
milk from unaffected breast, no guidelines on when to resume using milk from
affected side (2) tricyclic antidepressant use (3) Flagyl treatment of the
mother (4) breast abcess. If any of these are present we would not use the
milk. This is not our current practice. I have multiple references to present
to the contrary but would like to see what is the practice elsewhere.
Thoughts of our neonatologists? Thanks for your input.

Lisa Enger RN BSN IBCLC
Boston, MA

             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html