Marsha, I'm a very green nursery nurse (four years of experience) who works
in a very politically charged arena.  What do you do when you've told the
neonatalogists and they laugh at you?  What do you do when they look you in
the face and tell you that THEY are the doctors and THEY know what's best
for these infants?  What do you do when they tell you that it's NOT the
formula, it's the fact that they are premature?  How can I PROVE that it's
the formula?  My instinct tells me that this stuff is making kids sick.  I
see the correlation.  But whenever I try to say anything about it, I'm told
in no uncertain terms that I can't prove it and I'm making correlations that
quite simply just don't exist.  We've had nurses threatened for "making
waves".  (For the record, I'm not afraid of making waves.  I am not afraid
of being fired.  But it would make life really difficult.)

We have begged for human milk.  Our neo's refuse.  They claim it's too
expensive.  They don't believe in it.  We had a mother recently whose twins
were transferred from another state.  In the other state, they were using
donated human milk and wanted to continue using this milk for their very
sick, very early babies.  When they got to our hospital, they were flat
refused.  The docs refused any milk that hadn't been pasteurized and we
don't have the capability to do so in our facility.  Incidentally, they also
demanded that these infants, who had been cobedded and never separated since
birth, be placed in separate cribs, for fear of infection risk.  Is it any
wonder one twin almost immediately got very, very sick?  Is it any wonder
these parents wished they hadn't transferred their kids?

How do I do this?  How do I take on this giant?  Anyone who knows me knows
that I am passionate, but I feel like I am up against something so huge and
so enormous.  I've tried sharing my knowledge with the staff and some have
been very open.  But most others think I'm crazy.  We've already been given
a gag order (on a totally different controversial subject) because parents
were feeling guilty.  It did not matter that we were trying to help parents
make informed choices, the order was placed that we were no longer allowed
to speak to parents AT ALL about that subject.  I am afraid that if I start
pushing the envelope about the effects of ABM, the same gag order will be
placed.  And then how far have we gotten?

Honestly, I am passionate and I WANT to see these changes.  I just feel like
I'm nobody in this sea of goliaths.  Does ANYONE have any suggestions for
how to take on the politics of a hospital who delivers more babies in than
any other institution in the ENTIRE state?  (I believe our hospital, by the
end of the year, will be standing at about 8,000 deliveries!)

Sincerely looking for direction here...

Christina Harris, RN
Seattle, WA

On 9/23/07, [log in to unmask] <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
>
> The posts regarding formula use and NEC, specifically one brand of formula
> are troublesome - not just because of the outcomes but because these
> incidents have not been reported...
>
> Marsha Walker, RN, IBCLC
> Weston, MA

             ***********************************************

Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html
Mail all commands to [log in to unmask]
To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or [log in to unmask])
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet or ([log in to unmask])
To reach list owners: [log in to unmask]