Dear Lactnetters,
I have read many posts re. the multitude of frustrations breastfeeding
professionals encounter in the NICU environment.  As a former staff RN
for ten years and now NICU LC, I have, and do come up against  any and
all of them on a daily basis.  I thought you would like to hear
something we did to combat some of these problems in our NICU.  We  just
finished three 8 hour education days that were manditory for each nurse
(including per diems) to attend.  Lectures were given by one of our
neonatologists, mysef and our developmental specialist.  We also had a
panel of moms who had all worked on breastfeeding in our unit speak to
them about what helped them and what did not help them to succeed with
bf in our unit.  It was a VERY enlightening discussion.  The moms had a
lot of positive things to say, but they did say that the nurses had no
idea how powerful they are, and how what they say has such an impact on
these very fragile moms.  They said that they felt pressured to give
bottles "to get them out the door sooner", and in retrospect would tell
any mom trying to breastfeed a NICU baby to stay strong in her resolve
to do so, and to surround herself with the most supportive people,
filtering out the negative communications.  We also had a panel
discussion with staff, the three lecturers and a management person to
hash out  a lot of the controversial bf issues.  The main complaint of
the staff is that babies who are gestationally and physically able to
orally feed, whose mothers do not come in to put them to breast often
should not be fed by NG tube.  We are just starting to work on
alternative feeding protocols.  Previously the staff was very against
alternative feeding methods, but after this discussion they agreed that
it would be very helpful to have something else to offer in these
situations.  Lots more was discussed, but I think you can see how
helpful it was to open the door of communication and work out a lot of
these issues.  Many staff have approached me since these classes and
said that they will be more careful when talking to moms, making sure
that they don't project negative biases toward something they are
working so hard at.  I don't know about you, but I think that's
progress!!  I hope sharing this with you will shed some positive light
on a normally very negative subject and maybe stimulate other
eduation/discussion sessions like ours.


I do have one request.  Now that we are embarking on writing and
instituting alternative feeding methods in our unit, we could really use
some help.  If anyone has protocols and/or guidelines for cup and/or
finger feeding in a NICU, we would really appreciate the sharing of this
info.
Thanks so much
Mary M. Lussier  BSN IBCLC
Hartford, CT.

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