Dear Cathy,
Wow, what a bad situation. Do you even know for sure that this baby's respiratory problems were caused by feeding? If one is doing finger-feeding or cup-feeding properly, there should be very little chance of aspiration, less than if one were using a bottle, for example. When finger-feeding, the milk is not pushed into the baby's mouth but rather it is sucked in by the baby. When cup-feeding, the milk is brought to the baby's lips, but it is the baby who brings it into the mouth. During suck training, sometimes boluses of milk are given to reward the baby for doing something right with the tongue/suck, but this is not the usual procedure with babies who can suck, but simply will not go to the breast yet.
I think that you need to get some more facts before you can decide which tact to take in order to remedy this situation. If the nurse was finger-feeding improperly, then education is, of course, going to be a big part of the solution. It would be interesting to find out if any babies at your hospitals have aspirated while bottle-feeding and if so, why are bottles still being used for feeding? What if this baby had aspirated while bottle-feeding? Would that same doctor be outlawing bottle-feeding or would there be an attempt to find out what it was about bottle-feeding that particular time that went wrong and try to fix that? Try to remain very calm and balanced when speaking with the staff about this incident. Giving them a bunch of statistics may not be a solution. They are concerned about what happened to them and to this baby. Troubleshoot the incident as you would any other.
Good luck. Don't get too depressed yet. Cooler heads over the next few days may bring a better outcome for you and your babies.
Warmly,
Sharon Knorr, BSMT, ASCP, IBCLC
Newark, NY (near Rochester on Lake Ontario)
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