How about instead of calling it 'correct' language, we call it 'precise'?
Less value-laden, IMO.

I hope I have never added to the burden of any mother who was using a pump
to supply her baby with her milk, through careless use of language, nor by
any other means for that matter. But if we, who know what the nature of
breastfeeding is, are to be able to ease the lives of mothers like Alice
and the mothers she tells about, we need to be able to describe how
expressed breastmilk feeding can be accomplished sensitively so they don't
have to figure it all out for themselves, alone and bleary-eyed while
crying into their pumps. It is a paradox that parents are told to 'make the
bottle feed as much like a breastfeed as possible' but they are not told
what that means in purely practical terms. The person telling them this may
have no idea how bottle feeding differs from breastfeeding, and unless the
mother has experienced problem-free breastfeeding with a previous child,
she has no idea either, and yet in my experience she is still likely to
assume that it is her own 'fault' if she doesn't manage to do it 'right'.

We use an electronic documentation tool in our maternity service in the
hospital. I'm not happy with it in general, and I am especially unhappy
with the parts dealing with infant feeding. Whenever I discharge a mother
and baby from our unit, I have to click through one full screen for the
mother and one for the baby. The mother can be categorized as
'breastfeeding', 'partially breastfeeding' or 'not breastfeeding'.  The
baby can be categorized as being fed 'mother's milk', 'mother's milk and
formula', 'donor milk' or 'formula' and I can even choose between standard
formula or specialty formulas. For the baby, it's all about the product.
For the mother, it's only about degree of breastfeeding.

Never mind that babies are never, ever, ever sent home on donor milk, the
problem for me is that the choices do not describe things precisely in the
many instances where a mother is pumping some or all of the feeds and
feeding them to the baby some other way, because the tongue-tie has not
been dealt with, the baby has never actually attached at her breast for
whatever reason, or the mother's nipples are so damaged that letting the
baby suckle is just not practicable.

If I tick that an exclusively pumping mother is breastfeeding, her
community health nurse will not be alerted to the extra work she is doing
and she will not get the immediate follow-up support she needs. I can't
call it partial breastfeeding, and I won't call it 'not breastfeeding'
because that is how we describe a mother who is 100% formula feeding and
that is not at all the same as 100% expressing.

What I would prefer is a joint discharge document about the feeding on
which I could describe how the baby is being fed at discharge: the food and
the method both. Just to be precise, not to rank the alternatives nor to
judge anyone, and to reflect the fact that infant feeding is not something
separate for the baby and the mother, but rather something that involves
them both.

Rachel Myr
Kristiansand, Norway

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