Yes, I've worked with a couple of gastroschisis babies/moms. While I have
had no difficulty helping moms to understand that breastmilk will be
especially critical for their babies once they are able to take anything at
all, the mothers have had the usual spate of difficulties in dealing with
NICU's & other hospital units (i.e. difficulty getting staff to comply with
women's requests that their babies get only breast milk, "rules" that are
non-conducive to breastfeeding, etc. - you know the drill).

Interestingly, my most recent experience with this problem occurred with a
WIC client I was working with. She was a youngish teen mom, eager to
breastfeed and "sold" on the idea that she could do a good job of it and
that her milk would be very important for her baby (she knew about the
condition before delivery). Unfortunately, she got discouraged by the
surgeons and the nurses (who, from what I gather, just thought she was a kid
who didn't know what she was talking about and so disregarded her perfectly
reasonable plans), tried pumping but her supply decreased (gee, with support
like that I wonder why?), so ended up giving formula (you couldn't guess
that was coming, right?). This was followed by prolonged and major problems
with the baby not doing well on formula - he didn't digest it well, so had
poor growth, and the iron-fortified formula made him constipated, and the
iron-free formula was not obtainable through WIC despite doctors' orders for
it...This poor young woman spent many hours crying in our WIC clinic,
wishing she had never let herself be discouraged from her original plan to
breastfeed. A cautionary tale...

Cathy Bargar, RN, IBCLC
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-----Original Message-----
From: Janaki Costello, LLLL [mailto:[log in to unmask]]
Sent: Friday, December 11, 1998 12:15 PM
Subject: Gastroschisis