Ann says:
<<Sometimes I think that there are health care providers who equate the
breast
to a bottle that can be inserted into a baby's mouth. Their focus is on
getting the breast in the mouth instead of assisting the baby to get into a
good position and helping the mother to learn how to help baby latch. It
takes time. Lots of time sometimes.>>
I have found most HCPs (and even some IBCLCs, unfortunately) believe that we
can breastfeed a baby just like we bottle feed a baby. As a *good* nursery
nurse, I can bottle feed any baby, any time. Asleep, awake, interested, not
interested -- makes no difference. It isn't respectful of the baby, but I
can do it. 9:00? Time to eat? Pick the kid up, shove the bottle into his
mouth, and twist it against his palate so that he has to swallow or he will
drown.
By the way, I don't do this, nor will I do this -- but I am physically
capable of doing this. And lots and lots and lots of HCPs do this.
BUT, a breastfed baby has to be READY to eat. You can't MAKE a
breastfeeding baby take the breast just because it is 9:00. Or just because you think he
SHOULD be hungry. Or just because it has been 3 hours.....
The baby has to be ready -- and demonstrate this by rooting. If you wait
for baby readiness through providing skin to skin, and wait until he is
rooting, it is generally easy for the baby to latch on to the breast with a minimum
of help as long as there aren't other factors mitigating against it (tongue
tie, inflexible areola, etc etc).
However, how many times do we tell mothers -- you need to feed this baby
every two hours. Or every 3 hours. And they spend an inordinate amount of time
trying to wake a sleepy baby and shove the breast into his mouth -- because
that is what we do when we bottle feed. And we wonder why it is so difficult
to get babies to breastfeed....
And we wonder why mothers get discouraged.
And why nurses think it takes SO LONG to get a baby latched on, and why they
don't want to help, and why they end up shoving the breast into the baby's
mouth -- because they don't know any better, and no one is teaching them to
respect the baby, respect the mother, talk to the baby -- treat him like the
precious little person that he is, and treat the mother as an equal partner in
this whole process.
Good posts on this. I've appreciated so much of what has been said, and I
have a couple more slides to add to my talk that I'll be doing when we present
both "Building Bridges" and "Connecting Bridges" in various places in IN --
starting this week.
The message has been heard, and I will focus on it in my presentations to
the hospital staff -- at least 10 lectures this month, and 6 or 8 next month.
Thanks, all.
(\__/)
(='.'=)
(")_(") Jan Barger
_Lactation Education Consultants_
(http://www.lactationeducationconsultants.com/)
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