Remember that party game where you sit in a ring, and whisper a sentence in
the ear of the person next to you, who then whispers it to the person next
to them, and so on, until it gets back to you?

It may be that what the other practitioner said to a mother is not exactly
what the mother relates to you.  This is not because the mother intends to
smear the other practitioner or even that they are wide open to get smeared.
It just illustrates the weaknesses inherent in spoken communication.  If a
mother came to me with a printed handout about breastfeeding on the
letterhead of a health care professional and said handout contained outdated
or blatantly erroneous information, it wouldn't cost me much to criticize
them.  But hearing her relate what she understood the other practitioner to
have said, just tells me that she has picked up some mistaken info along the
way, not how she got it.  

This happens all the time simply between shifts in the hospital, or between
two staff people on the same shift.  I have found that a less threatening
way to broach the subject is to have a private conversation with the person
in question about the case, opening it by saying (using an example from one
of the recent posts on this) 'Somehow, this mother had gotten the idea that
a breastfed baby should be having formed stools by the age of x weeks.  I'm
concerned that she was actually worried because her baby is having those
loose, yellow curdy stools that are so typical of breastfed babies.'   

This allows the other person to offer you some alternative explanation for
how the mother could have gotten such an impression, or perhaps just to save
face while learning something that can improve the care they give in future.
It works way better than writing or phoning the person and saying 'Where do
you get off, telling mothers this nonsense?  EVERYONE knows a breastfed
baby's stools are normally loose and curdy until they start solids!'  

Then, there's the non-gullibility truce tactic - 'I promise not to believe
everything I hear from patients about you, if you promise not to believe
everything you hear from them about me.'  

Yes, I know there are practitioners in my community who would rather see a
baby get formula than get breastmilk with antihistamines or any antibiotics
or any analgesics or sedatives or antidepressants in it.  I know there are
those who deny that there could be any value at all in breastfeeding beyond
180 days, and who doubt that there is any point in trying to help mothers
with sore nipples before they agree to wean.  I think most of the people in
my community, maternity staff included, believe that painful, scabbed
nipples are a necessary phase all mothers have to grit their teeth and get
through, before breastfeeding gets easier, even though they will all
dutifully speak the words 'sore nipples post partum are almost always due to
bad positioning and latch' when asked.  

There are a lot of myths out there, but the only way we are going to
eradicate them is by making efforts at open communication with the people
who believe them WHILE WE USE BEST PRACTICE TO HELP MOTHERS DISPROVE THE
MYTHS.  

Rachel Myr
Kristiansand, Norway

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