Due to all the discussion about epidurals and childbirth, I have decided to tell what happened to my daughter in November 2004, when she gave birth for the first time; it was at a hospital with a birth center (another bad joke). I was in the waiting room during the birth. When I went in to see my granddaughter, my daughter said: "Mom, you don't know how hard it was to fight off everyone who wanted to 'help' me with pitocin, an epidural, fetal monitoring, etc. They became angry when I turned everything down, and the resident OB even slammed the door to the room as she stormed out while I was having a contraction." (Very professional of that resident!) I looked at my daughter and she started to laugh; of course, she knew that I knew exactly how much pressure they had put on her; we had discussed the possibilities all through her pregnancy. That's why I gave her a gift of a labor doula - to help her fight off the doctors and nurses. The doula helped save the birth because she was a witness to what was going on and the staff KNEW IT. The doula explained to the OB my daughter's reactions to what was going on, her contractions would stop because of all the stress. The doula also reminded her of my daughter's goal: a natural normal birth. The doula was worth every penny I paid her, and then some. I hope my daughter has a home birth next time. Oh, and we also had to fight to not let them take the baby to the nursery. The OB said that it would require administrative permission to "go against hospital policy" and, of course, no administrator was there at 3am. When a nurse tried to take the baby, I stepped in front of her and flatly stated that NO ONE was going to separate my daughter and her baby. She went away angry and we did not care. The challenges did not end there. My granddaughter, Isabel, was tongue-tied. When I tried to speak with the pediatrician about it, he would not discuss it with me. The baby did well (i.e., gained weight) so the MDs were not concerned. However, the weight gain was all due to the fact that my daughter had a superabundant milk supply; I knew what could happen in the near-future and beyond. Seeing an ENT in NY City did no good; he assessed it on a scale of 1-10 as a level 3 and advised my daughter that it was not serious and did not require snipping, totally undermining my role as a Lactation Specialist who was there to explain what I saw with the feeding problems. I don't think he was familiar with the four types of tongue-tie - Type 4 being the hardest to diagnose and, IMO, the most serious. A wonderful pediatric surgeon in Queens, NY, said she would definitely clip it and also the upper labial frenulum because that was tight also (I had looked at it but was not skilled enough to know that it was moderately tight). During the first 3 weeks, my daughter developed breast inflammation in the middle of one night (surprise, surprise - the enormous milk supply was not being drained well). She called her OB and was sent to the ER because "it might be a uterine infection." The OB in the ER told her it was a bilateral breast infection and not to breastfeed on the side that was worse. (What is the logic behind that? If it is okay to feed on one side that is inflamed, why is it not okay to feed on the other side that is inflamed? Some of these people cannot think straight and are not scientific.) Thank goodness my daughter knew better and continued to breastfeed. But she was put on antibiotics immediately, which I would have waited on. Per my suggestion, she took live acidophilus to fend off thrush, which she never developed, and did get better. Isabel's frenulum was clipped at 3 weeks and she breastfed exclusively for 9 months, at which time she started solids on a very limited basis due to allergies in the family. They are still breastfeeding beautifully at 15 months. BTW, a few days after the frenulum was clipped, Isabel would stick out her tongue, which she had not been able to do previously; then, she would move it around (almost looking for something to lick) and a BIGGGGGGGGGGGGG smile would light up her face. She was happy to be able to do what she had not done in utero or for the first 3 weeks of life on the outside, and it was not painful to try. With all the help that I was able to provide my daughter, she still had to do battle with the medical establishment to get the proper care during labor and for her baby's tight frenulum. How can we expect women who don't have that support to be able to do well? Is it any wonder that they have abnormal births, abnormal infant feeding, and then, when they are told the truth, they become angry? Sometimes, the anger is misplaced; they blame the messenger instead of those who caused the problems. Lee Galasso, MS, IBCLC, RLC Lactation Specialist Westchester County in NY State *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html