>Thank you all for your responses! I  basically told the mother most 
>of the same things when I talked to her just before posting last 
>night. She did see her Dr. again this a.m. and he has referr

I agree with the other subsequent postings, and I suppose a paed. 
gastroenterologist *is* a paed.....and will hopefully recognise 
serious under-feeding ('cos it certainly sounds like that). So at 
least we are getting a medic's input, and we can just hope this is 
someone who knows their stuff.

I have had experiences similar to Teresa's - mothers who are not able 
to accurately describe their babies' feeding and behaviours, and who 
say all is well, and then as soon as you actually see the baby, you 
know things are really bad....then you observe a feed which confirms 
the baby is simply not transferring milk.

I have also come across HCPs who know/suspect things are not ok at 
all, but who have a gap in their training that means they have no 
clue what to say to a mother about this They hope that things will 
magic themselves right, or that the mother will see another HCP (in 
the UK, this usually means the HCP refers to the GP) who then takes 
responsibility for telling the mother things are not good.

Even as a volunteer seeing mainly well babies,  in a context where 
all mothers and babies routinely see a midwife then a health visitor 
and who visit well baby clinics, I see mothers and babies who have 
slipped through the safety net because of poor care. I have learnt 
that while mostly, women are sensitive and aware, I can't rely on 
that. Sometimes, for whatever reason, mothers can be in denial or 
they may genuinely not know what normal is.

Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc, tutor, UK
-- 
http://www.heatherwelford.co.uk

http://heatherwelford.posterous.com

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