Betsy commented on the Time.com article:
"Just try harder" my ass. Have you EVER said that to a mom? Cheezewhiz.>>
Betsy, that was funny! But I have to say -- yes, it is said to mothers
frequently. Just yesterday I had a mom in my office -- the baby wasn't
gaining fast enough, according to the pediatrician, and what she was told by a
number of people, including a couple of "LCs" is, "you just aren't trying
hard enough." Now -- did they say that in those words? I don't know -- but
that is what the mother HEARD them say. How many moms are told (by
someone), "you have to wake the baby and feed her every two hours" and then when
they find that an impossibility -- they get the message, "you just need to
try harder." This mom said to me, "I feel like such a failure!" But she
had gotten such mixed messages -- opposite messages often -- from the
medical/lactation community, that she had never learned to trust her own common
sense or her baby's cues. SHE wasn't a failure -- she had been failed by the
collective "us".
I had another mom that was sent home from the hospital -- baby wasn't
latching. I asked her what going home advice the hospital LCs had given her --
I like to work in concert with advice they have been given if at all
possible, or explain my rationale for giving different advice -- and she said,
"They told me to just keep trying."
So it does happen -- more often than we would like to think.
I agree with Nancy Wight. I liked the article -- thought it a good wake
up call for all of us -- and I would hope that the people that NEED to read
it, do. We need to be careful we aren't giving moms unrealistic directions
which set them up for failure or for thinking they aren't trying hard
enough because they can't do what we told them to do.
So, while none of "us" may tell a mom, "just try harder" -- someone is.
Jan Barger, RN, MA, IBCLC, FILCA
Lactation Education Consultants
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