>Follow-up on snake bite.  Spoke to poison control center.  They are the folks
>who are telling the docs not to let mom breastefeed.  She is getting an
>antivenin called Corfab.  They also mentioned to me that "they are handling
>the case" and the mom is "also on morphine and phenergan and there is just
>too much going on."  That statement made me wonder if they really know she
>can't breastfeed due to the antivenin or are they just playing it safe
>because they don't know.  Does anyone out there know about this stuff?
>
>The poison control center and the docs are none too happy about an outsider
>being called for advice here.
>
>Any phamacological help would be appreciated.

I know it's too late for this case, but this is a perfect set-up for one of
my favorite forms of skullduggery.  Someone with lovely pharmacological
initials writes to the LC, laying out in clear terms why each of the factors
does not preclude breastfeeding, preferably doing so as if this were a
hypothetical case, or as if the pharmacologist believes it is, and
preferably as if s/he doesn't know the LC well.  The LC gives the note to
the mom to share with her doctors.  **The note is clearly not directed at
them** and so can be read by them without their defenses going up.  It's
information from an unknown but qualified person who doesn't know them or
know what they've advised.

The mother can ask them why her case is different from the one outlined in
the letter, and they have to answer.  Most likely they'll acquiesce... or at
least she'll know from their "we just don't think it's a good idea" that
*they* don't have reasons behind their recommendation and the
*pharmacologist* does.  The power is put in her hands, and there's nothing
threatening in the letter as far as the docs are concerned.

I love writing these second-hand letters.  I've even written formal letters
to people I know really well, so I come off as an authority speculating on a
case from which I'm totally removed, not as a buddy entering into a
conspiracy to override ignorance.  It works :-)

Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC  Ithaca, NY
www.wiessinger.baka.com

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