In a message dated 5/1/1 4:05:27 PM, [log in to unmask] writes:
<< <In my opinion, again, women are too concerned with "alienating" and not
enough concerned with insisting on evidence based SAFE practice. I would
not be concerned about alienation. I would be consulting my
attorney. Maybe alienation is the beginning of safe practice for this
hospital. >>
I do agree with this comment, but in reality, they have your baby! A NICU or
PICU can bring the strongest mother to her knees. I have seen mothers
"guided" into the decisions the staff prefers they make and I have seen
others overtly threatened by staff who think decisions really are up to them
and not the parents. So many moms express anger about this while their babies
are in hospital, but seem to lose their motivation to act upon it once the
babies are home. So many things come into play--the need to put the
experience behind them, the need to believe they really were in control, the
need to believe they could not have allowed anything wrong to happen, the
need for follow-up care, the need to rationalize away upsetting feelings, the
are feeling of gratitude for those who saved your baby (sometimes quite
justified) and on and on.
I try very hard to convince moms to let hospitals know about their
experiences-bad and good, but most say they will and never do. I have mixed
feelings about this--parents do need to be stronger in advocating for their
children, but they are in an alien world where the message of who is in
control is very clear from the start. In my experience, parents who question
procedures and "decisions" are not treated in a very welcome manner by many
staff.
I am not speaking from conjecture. I sat in many meetings in a large NICU
where the key word was "compliance". "Compliant" parents were clearly the
"good" ones. I also personally experienced having a young child in the PICU.
The nurses were so wonderful, but there were huge issues with the doctors b/c
my dh and I approach our family's health care in a holistic way and we
insisted upon giving our approval after full understanding for anything which
was not an emergency, life-saving procedure and b/c we refused to leave our
child overnight. I always think about this when I counsel moms w/ sick
babies--we successfully advocated for our child (in part b/c the nurses
supported us), but I worked in that hospital and knew my way around; most
moms are coming from a position of much greater disadvantage. They need a lot
of loving support in finding their voices in such an environment of control
and fear. I certainly realize not every NICU is the same, and certainly not
all practitioners are the same, but even in a NICU which is far more
supportive of parents, fear is still inherent in the reality of the
situation.
Jennifer Tow, IBCLC, CT, USA
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