In my area, we used to have a 2-3 day hospital stay for birth. Every mother
was helped in hospital, although level of skill varied [as it still
does]...and if you CHOSE to go home after 24 hours, you were a member of a
special program, and received an in home LC visit.
Now, managed care is changing things so that hospital stays are by routine,
short...ie 24-48 hours. And now they are dropping that program of in home
help.
Has something changed? This makes me irate!!! Have mothers all of a sudden
stopped needing help? No. It is just that the insurance cos have it all
neatly in hand..and the moms are OUT [ie not costing them money] as a rule
of thumb, after 24 hours or so, and so they now forget the nicey nice program...
Bottom line: it appears to me that the managed care companies are calling
the shots, and let the mothers who need bf support be DAMNED. It is *&&^^
inhuman, if you ask me.
Maybe I am just super annoyed. Yesterday, I was helping at a LLL meeting. I
and another LLLeader. In walked this young mom. SHe sat down, with a week
old baby, and BURST into tears. Had never gotten the baby onto one
breast...at all. Had had surgery on that breast 6 weeks antepartum, and
engorgement had come and gone. No one had helped her. SHe received a cursory
call from the pediatrician from the nurses who really know not a lot, and
her midwife called her and left a message. She told me she didn't call her
back because wasn't she SUPPOSED to be having problems, and she shouldn't
bother that busy midwife. ARGH.
I am HAPPY happy to say that there, she nursed long and well on BOTH sides,
and I referred her on to further support, and gave her my home number, but
this makes me madder than hell.
More and more of these women are going to be slipping through the cracks,
and all so that those D*&^ed insurance companies can give their HMO heads a
15 million dollar salary.
Ack. Makes me sick.
Kathleen, up and at 'em early this am.
Kathleen B. Bruce, BSN, IBCLC co-owner Lactnet,Corgi-L,TLC, Indep. Consultant
http://together.net/~kbruce/kbbhome.html
LACTNET Archives http://library.ummed.edu/lsv/archives/lactnet.html
|
