seven weeks ago i posted about being called to the hospital by a distraught
grandmother whose daughter had given birth, breastfeeding had been screwed
around with (sorry, no nicer way to put this, really), and when she pumped,
got blood. she was a classic case of rusty pipe syndrome, had all the factors
listed in lawrence as typical, etc. however, the nurse proclaimed she had
"never seen this before and it's bad!" and called the ob/gyn who said the
same thing, and told the mother to dry up immediately so she could get worked
up for cancer. "i've never seen this before ever!" was the direct quote.
to recap another lovely detail, this woman's mother had had breast cancer, so
it was a case of picking a most appropriate victim.
so you can imagine how worked up *I* was, and i went to the hospital and
calmly told the mother the facts, gave her a copy of pages from lawrence,
wrote a doctor's report (and just think of how my fingers longed to write
something like, okay, i won't even say it), and offered to help her if she
decided to breastfeed.
one of the other lovely aspects of this was that the father was bottlefeeding
the baby formula while we had this talk, and the nurse came in and said,
well! she's not taking it fast enough, here, let me, and proceeded to shove
the bottle in the baby's mouth, rotate the bottle, rub the nipple on the roof
of the baby's mouth, etc., etc., all those ugly things we discuss with the
idea "oral rape." if you saw it, you would believe it.
imagine the level of restraint i had to employ to remain calm and
professional! i didn't say a word.
now imagine my surprise when this mother called me late saturday night about
a nipple bleb and blocked duct and said "oh, i've been exclusively
breastfeeding." wow! i was so very, very pleased. she was in too much misery
for me to ask her more, i plan to ask her today, but see? you never know when
you may have won the battle.
there's still hope.
carol brussel IBCLC
ps also in this hospital was a large display window for the lactation clinic
where you can buy bras, pumps, pads, books, etc. too bad you can't buy good
advice . . . .
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