Katherine D wrote:
I know from several personal experiences that it can be very difficult to
question hospital policies, or to demand changes, and that when you
threaten
to take your child to another hospital, the NICU nurses say they will call
the security guards, then call the police (!), and then call Child
Protective Services to prevent you from taking the child and get a court
order removing you as legal guardian of the child.  :(

Is this true?  No - I'm not doubting you - I'm just horrified, shocked - I
know we've had court-ordered caesarean sections in the UK (but they're so
rare that they make headlines) - but I've not heard of this kind of action
in neonatal units here - maybe I'm naive, out-of-touch - patients here (or
parents) can 'take their own discharge' (ie. get out but sign to say they
except the consequences) - occasionally children of Jahovah's Witnesses are
made wards-of-court if life-saving transfusions are needed and parents are
refusing - but on the scale you're describing - There seems to be so little
scientific consensus on many midwifery/neonatal procedures that there
generally seems room for compromise/negotiation.  (I'll probably get 101
mails now telling me to Get Real!)
Hannah Hulme Hunter
NCT breastfeeding counsellor and midwife, UK