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Lactation Information and Discussion <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Wed, 15 Mar 2000 13:32:22 -0500
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We have had several issues come around consent to supplement. And in the
final analysis it comes down to this:

1. Consent must be *informed*. Any nurse or doctor who really wants to can
make any new mother consent to anything.

2. Staff training and attitudes. Any nurse or doctor who wants to get around
the policy can.

Just one example:

In one hospital where consent was necessary and where a friend of mine is an
LC, she was speaking with a mother behind a current, she overheard a nurse
enter the room and say something like this "Your baby is dehydrated and this
may result in severe neurologic damage. Would you like us to supplement?
Yes? Sign here please".  Like what new mother is going to say no?

Not always so egregiously, but any place where the hospital has a policy of
consent to supplement, staff are doing what my friend described above. It
always comes back to attitudes and that means the person in charge has to
put down the law--if you are not interested in helping mothers with
breastfeeding, if you don't think breastfeeding is important, please find
somewhere else to work.  Of course, we still need training, because a good
attitude is not enough, but it's the most important basis from which to
begin.

So, I'm not against the policy or principle in theory, because just making
such a policy sends a message, but don't hope for too much.

Jack Newman, MD, FRCPC

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