Hello,

I am looking for input from the group on a difficult situation in our
NICU. We have a mother who gave birth to a preemie four weeks ago, at 29
weeks gestation and 1750 grams. This mother is from Sedona, AZ, and is
an "extreme" herbalist. She is anti-western medicine to the max, and we
have had difficulty with everything from placing a line to giving
much-needed antibiotics to her baby without a fight. All in all, she
looks at the NICU environment as being toxic for her baby, with
criticism from everything to plastic and styrofoam used in the
equipment.

This mother is actually breastfeeding pretty well for most feedings.
However her infant is growing poorly, and we suggested the use of HMF in
her breastmilk to fortify calories, phosphorous, calcium and
elctrolytes.  She refuses because HMF has whey in it. We have tried to
comply with her by adding organic safflower oil to her milk a few
feedings a day, and now the infant has oily stools and an ever
increasing poor growth grid.

What should we do to help this baby go home with enough calories and
extra vitamins/minerals? Do you know of any product which does not
contain whey and can be added to her milk? I would so appreciate any
feedback you may have. I have tried to contact Dr. Lowdog (herbalist
physician with a specialty in breastfeeding) with no success thus far.

Thanks!!
Brenda Phipps, BS, IBCLC

             ***********************************************

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]

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