Content-Type: |
text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1; DelSp="Yes"; format="flowed" |
Date: |
Wed, 29 Aug 2007 09:23:07 +0200 |
Content-Disposition: |
inline |
Reply-To: |
|
Subject: |
|
From: |
|
Content-Transfer-Encoding: |
quoted-printable |
MIME-Version: |
1.0 |
Sender: |
|
Parts/Attachments: |
|
|
I never thought so much about these hours before the last few years,
when women started getting kicked out of the hospital at sixty plus
hours. All of a sudden there was much more pressure on those first
couple of days, and it hasn't benefited mothers, babies or
breastfeeding.
In the early 1990s, we could let babies set the tempo, feed when they
were ready, and mothers were relaxed and confident that things would
sort themselves out. Now, if the baby isn't feeding at least eight
times daily with audible swallows after twenty-four hours we are all
hypernervous and starting to Do Things with them, like feeding
expressed colostrum to healthy, sleeping, term babies and scaring the
mothers into thinking they have a baby who doesn't even have the basic
survival instinct so they will have to express and hand feed them
indefinitely. Frankly, it stinks.
Before, we never weighed the babies between birth and about sixty
hours or more. Now we weigh them at birth and at discharge and they
frequently have lost more than ten per cent of their birth weight
because they are less than two days old. This is an EXPECTED FINDING
given what we know about the net balance between intake and output
even in normal healthy newborns who are feeding on cue. If we waited
another day to weigh these babies they would be heavier because that
is the natural course of normal breastfeeding for most women. It
usually takes about three days for intake to exceed output, which is
when weight begins to rise. This is what we saw for years and years
and yet it is as though we have no memory of it to help us cope with
the New Age of Stinginess in maternity care.
I shudder to think what my life will be like when we are sending women
home after one day and treating an eight per cent weight loss as
pathological and requiring intervention in the form of supplemental
feeds. I hope I have retired by then.
Rachel Myr
Kristiansand, Norway
***********************************************
Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html
Mail all commands to [log in to unmask]
To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or [log in to unmask])
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet or ([log in to unmask])
To reach list owners: [log in to unmask]
|
|
|