About one year ago, a breastfeeding  mother went to the emergency room of
a major New York hospital; she had chills, body aches, fever, AND one of
her breasts had a reddened lower quadrant. A blood test showed a high
white cell count, she was admitted to the hospital, put on IV
antibiotics, given codeine for the pain and was told not to breastfeed
for at least 10 days. She was given an electric pump while at the
hospital to pump and dump for the two days. The hand cylinder type pump
she used at home was uncomfortable, etc. and she wasn't very successful.
(The hospital pump worked great) Her daughter (six months) refused the
breast and mom very sadly gave up breastfeeding. When she went back to
the hospital for a follow-up, the doctor asked where was her incision-he
meant for the drainage of an abscess. She didn't know what he was talking
about (having not a clue about mastitis/and or abscess) but she did not
have to be incised or drained at any point so of course there was no
incision.
*Question*: what was the justification for hospitalizing this mother?
Wouldn't she have done just as well with oral antibiotics? If she had a
private doctor, that doctor most likely would have prescribed medication
over the phone, without ever seeing this patient!
Of course, one year later it's kind of hard to track down this whole
story. BUT this was a mother who had breastfed a previous child for well
over one year. If she HAD contacted me last year, I wonder how we could
have handled this mistreatment at the time...
If there is a need to know, please email me for the name of the hospital.
Pearl Shifer, IBCLC