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Subject:
From:
Cathy Bargar <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Lactation Information and Discussion <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 16 Mar 1999 12:08:47 -0500
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Wanted to let all of you who so kindly and helpfully responded privately and
publicly about my non-feeding baby that things are going much better, after
a tense couple of days! No direct nursing yet (we're just leaving that
entirely aside till baby gets fed a bit more and gains strength and
stamina), but since I started parents feeding ebm by bottle the baby has
started peeing and pooping (hallelujah! If joyful song could come over your
internet service, you'd hear me big-time!...). Wt. check at MD later today -
keeping my fingers crossed!

It took me *numerous* repetitions of my scientifically-arrived-at "magic
number" of how many ccs they needed to get into her every 24 hrs., broken
down into how many feedings of how much milk exactly how often, to finally
impress upon them the gravity of the situation. The father is a PhD student
(who has to defend his thesis later this week!) in immunology/microbiology,
so once I got extremely specific and repeated it over and over again to both
parents, with the certainty of authoritative scientific "fact" firmly in my
voice, they finally "got it". And then, once she started to have output and
they could see her scrawny little hands & feet plumping up, they saw that
they were on the right path & so were much more able to comply. This "you
must give x amt with y frequency" approach is very counter to my usual
style, which is "well, we could try this or that, and see how it goes, and
what is working best for you...". Sometimes I guess it's good to have a
rule! And I certainly felt better once I did the calculations and felt
"empowered" to just lay it right out for them as my "orders".

Poor dithery parents, though! They weren't being non-compliant in the usual
sense, just so swamped by having to really get on the ball &  do what needed
to be done as often as it took. They just couldn't really "get it". And I
know we were all helped by my hearing all of your voices in my head,
reminding me to acknowledge that yes, it's so hard and so confusing and so
much work, but that this is just how it is for a while, and so on we'll go;
it will get better IF you can get this baby out of the danger zone, but
right now this is what we need to do; yes, it's normal to be tired, yes it's
hard to feed by a schedule when it means waking the baby, yes, I know it
takes a long time to pump & feed her...it's OK to have those feelings, and
once we get her eating and growing things will get better for you...babies
are sometimes like this, and human beings have incredible strength and
adaptability when they need to, and right now you need to, isn't it a
fortunate thing that we're made with the ability to go through these periods
so our babies can survive...

Anyway, thanks to all! I was really impressed with how quickly so many of
you responded, and with the uniformity of your responses, all of which
strengthened my own perceptions and instincts. Hey, that many LCs can't be
all wrong!

Cathy Bargar, RN, IBCLC

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