How frustrating to hear yet more blatently wrong information given out to a mother- and how absolutely horrible to hear the scare tactics used- A four and a half month old fully breastfed baby, gaining okay, - mom is a heavy smoker and a big coffee drinker, has been throughout pregnancy and lactation. Baby is irritable lately, has always spit up, now a bit more, plus lots of crying. Pediatrician suspects reflux, so has told mom to put baby on schedule, to nurse no more often than every three to three and a half hours, and use pacifier and "baby tea" , "so he can determine if the problem is from the feedings" (we didn't understand it either) . The cherry on the top is that he said to the mother the following, when she expressed concern over a possible need for medication for the baby - " Don't even ask what kind of a catastrophy can happen if the milk gets aspirated into the baby's lungs- You don't want to see that"... Since that encouraging statement the mom has been checking the baby's breathing every fifteen minutes all night for fear that he might be choking to death on the breastmilk, and probably smoking even more from the pressure....I wonder what the next move on the agenda is. Instead of saying something like," What a lucky baby to be breastfeeding, especially if he does have reflux, etc.." or something useful, like talking about the mom's diet (oh yes, he told her that only sweet food passes thru into the breastmilk - is that why for every medication he tells moms to stop bfdg? Are they all sweet?) or other strategies, no mention at all of the cigarettes or coffee, just making such unproductive statements like these.....He has already prescribed some special drops that make the baby have a bowel movement, because several weeks ago, the baby had some blood in his stools, with the diagnosis of a virus. Since then his stooling frequency dropped, and these drops get it going. What about changes in stooling in bfd babies? Fortunately the mom knows to seek information from other sources and will hopefully use her own sense plus info to make really informed decisions regarding this situation. Just Jennie ranting and sharing her frustration in sunny and hot Israel, where the problems are the same, just in Hebrew (and several other languages, but the same as all over the world) *********************************************** 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