HI, folks, a mom had the good sense to call me today bec. she was
engorged. Why? She was told by her pediatrician not to breastfeed because
the baby had watery stools bec. mom drank too much orange juice, and
therefore baby must go on pedialyte till the orange juice is out of her
system. I am not kidding you, folks.  Baby is one week old today. I asked
mom to describe the stools. Watery, yellow,  with little seeds. What does
this sound like to you?
Mom came into the office, we used the one hand pump with the blue handle
and got out about six ounces. I discovered yet another advantage to this
pump, namely, mom was too stressed to pump herself, it was easy for me to
do the pumping.  I think the pumps that need two hands would have made it
harder to me to pump someone else's breasts.

Mom came in with a friend, in fact her friend had encouraged to come in
bec. we have the pumps on hand, she is also on the WIC program and  also
could not breastfeed. Why? Because she had given birth to twins who
weighed less than six pounds.

Mom felt great after the pumping session. I had a really good time with
her and her friend. As is typical for WIC, the baby was left home. But
folks, I'm getting better at this. Instead of telling mom what to do, I
asked her if she wanted to continue to breastfeed. I also said that I
didn't know if her baby was having any other problems but that if she
felt that the baby wasn't well, she should have the doctor get to the
root of the problem. (The baby had no fever and was not diagnosed as
having any other condition except mom's orange juice overload but hey,
you never know). We talked about lactose intolerance, milk allergy, and
galactosemia.  Just talked, no diagnosing.

I am really and truly baffled by this scenario.

Pearl Shifer, IBCLC