Hi everyone!
I just got home from a La Leche League meeting, and I had
to share this with some folks who would really appreciate
it. There was a mom who arrived late at the meeting
tonight, came into the room, sat down and started to nurse
her baby. I almost burst into tears as I watched that baby
nurse! WHY? Well, I first saw this baby on Halloween. The
little girl was 37 weeks gestation at that point, so nipple
confused she would scream at her mothers breast, and had
already been hospitalized once for dehydration. At that
point we started cup-feeding, which caused a huge uproar
with her pediatrician and the public health nurse who came
to her house. So, she quit the cup feeding and got more and
more discouraged as more people kept telling her that she
should bottle-feed and even accusing her of being abusive
for cup-feeding.
Although she'd quit cup feeding, suck training, etc, she
was still putting the baby to breast daily. Well, at 2
months, baby decided that she might nurse sometimes. The
mom saw me again at that point, and with a periodontal
syringe to keep rewarding her at the breast, she nursed for
15 minutes. I gave the mom the SNS video to take home so sh
could think about it. Two weeks later she called me back
and said that she wanted the SNS. When she got to my house
the baby nursed beautifully for 20 minutes with the SNS.
BTW, Mom's milk had dried up by now. So, she was in for
another big challenge. I could write 3 more pages about all
of the challenges she had to relactate, but she did it, and
tonight she came to the LLL meeting with a totally breastfed
baby! WOW!
There are so many frustrations in this work, but when you
come across a mom like this, it really reminds you about WHY
you're doing it! There are moms out there that really want
and need our help. I'm glad that I was here and able to
help this mom.
BTW, she said that the baby now HATES bottles and pushes
them away with her little fists! This, of course, makes mom
feel really good!
Debby
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