Just a little good news:

As you may know, the hospital where I am employed has a long way to go
towards being bf friendly. But it seems I've made a little headway. Instead
of calling the pediatrician to see if the mother could breastfeed on her
last dose of IV cefoxitin, given for "C/S prophylaxis" (and holding the baby
off til we got an answer), the nursery nurse said "it's the last dose, I
won't even call." This as a result of education about bf and meds. FYI the
nursery has to call the pediatrician for every drug the mother is on and
often the mother is told she cannot bf. In another case, a pediatrician who
has always kept the baby in hospital and started phototherapy for any bili
level (physiologic juandice) over 10, has started to discharge them and have
them return to office for next day bili check. And one more success: the
nursing assistant (helper to the RNs) asked about feedings of a mother ready
for discharge and, even though the mother was very confident about her bf,
the assistant asked some probing questions. When the mother relayed that the
baby was bf for one or two minutes and falling asleep, the assistant felt I
needed to see her. As you might guess, we had some poor positioning and
latch which we corrected and the baby bf well. We were able to show the
open/pause/close suck i.e. milk transfer. Great teaching moment. And so
great that the nursing assistant knows a baby on the breast is not
necessarily breastfeeding. This is real progress, folks. And on that upbeat
note, I will go nomail for awhile.

Laurie Wheeler, IBCLC, MN, RN
mailto:[log in to unmask]
New Orleans Louisiana, s.e. USA


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