A typical Sunday for me is usually breastfeeding rehabilitation, which
means that I have to fix the breastfeeding for all those moms who got
poor or no help all weekend.  Today, the hospital was overflowing with
new moms.  Ask Cathy Genna about the breastfeeding room where up to 30
moms sit there desperately waiting for me to help them!! It is a LC
nightmare. 
We are now receiving moms who have left the North of the country where
rockets are still raining down on civilian areas day and night. 
 There are many moms whose husbands have been called up into the
Reserves.  Those moms need special care and attention.  

In addition, I had a mom with the worst engorgement that I have seen in
a long time. She had a CS last Wednesday, did not manage to breastfeed
her baby and was told not to pump because that would cause engorgement!!
I did manage to get some milk out and get the baby latched with a
silicone shield, and after the baby drained one breast, we pumped the
other one.  

Then in walks a mom who tells me that she had a mastectomy and has only
one breast, and really wants to breastfeed.  She had enough milk in that
one breast to feed the entire population of a small village, but I had
to explain to her 12 times that you don't need two breasts to
breastfeed!!  Her mother was there telling her that she will not have
enough milk!!

After that the sweetest couple who had sat so attentively in my morning
lecture joined the already crowded room with their sweet little baby who
was born with a cleft lip.  That baby latched better that most of the
others. I love to see moms latch babies with cleft lip.  Suddenly the
babies look perfectly normal, and the mom can hardly see the cleft and
almost forgets that it is there!!   

Remember, all this time there are all those moms who have to learn to
breastfeed because they have to return to the North and sit in bomb
shelters for who knows how long ( 26 days so far), and those poor moms
whose hubbies are defending our country, all begging for my attention.  

AS if that was not enough, another mom came in, took off her prosthesis,
and needed help to learn how to breastfeed with one arm which ended
about 2 inches after her elbow.  The left arm was fine.  Thank goodness
for Rebecca Glover's nipple flipping trick!!  She used her stump where
we usually use the finger to flip the nipple back,  then in.   This mom
did better with 1 1/2 arms than many moms do with 2, and because we are
all in one big room, everyone watched her latch her baby after only one
demonstration on my part.  They were speechless!!  I am going to ask her
for permission to film her latching the baby tomorrow.  

I had no students today unfortunately, which means no help, and they
missed some really interesting cases.  I am begging for the hospital to
hire another LC.  

Esther Grunis, IBCLC, who is very tired and very sad at what is
happening in this little country these days.  
Lis Maternity Hospital
Tel Aviv, Israel

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

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]

The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html