Teresa Pitman's story about the NICU nurse her DIL referred to her on the
spot, is brilliant.

One of our junior pediatricians had a habit of asking mothers certain
questions as he did the newborn exam.  Healthy babies in Norway are
generally examined one time by a pediatrician, normally when baby is at
least 24 hours old but less than 48.  Only if the baby is having some kind
of problem will they be examined more than once during the post partum stay,
and the next time they will be seen by a doctor is at the six week check at
a public well baby clinic.  That check will likely be by a GP, not a
pediatrician.  Healthy babies don't have their own pediatricians, they are
put on the caseload of the mother's family doctor, who only sees them if
they are ill.  So this is the one and only time a doctor meets the mother in
the first six weeks.  His exams *always* included  'And you're
breastfeeding?' 'Yes.'  'And you have milk?' to which they reply 'Ummm, I
don't know if there's very much, but...'  or, even worse, 'Not yet, but I
hope it will start soon'  or 'No, and my baby wants to nurse all the time,
but I don't have anything for her'.   If I heard this, I would always say to
him, 'she has normal colostrum at the moment' or some such thing.  Finally I
got him alone and asked what kind of response he expected from women on the
second post partum day - and I told him that if a mother ever reported
having volumes of milk we would probably investigate whether she had a
pituitary tumor, and what a baby's capacity is at that age anyway.  He had a
good laugh when he realized that his question was only confusing the
mothers, who were being reassured constantly by staff that it is NORMAL not
to be leaking copious amounts of watery milk on day two, only to be
confronted with a worried 'Do you have milk??' by the baby doctor.  

Unfortunately this was the same doc who instructed another mother whose four
week old baby was hospitalized for a reason unrelated to breastfeeding, that
she should only have the baby at her breast for thirty minutes at most, no
oftener than every three hours, in order to let him get properly hungry so
he would then eat just as properly.  The baby was on IV medication and was
encased in plaster from the thighs down on both sides following corrective
surgery, and wouldn't you know, he wanted to be in mother's arms with breast
available, pretty much every waking moment.  She was happy to oblige too.
It was the medical staff who had a problem with it, and I did get this, and
the inappropriate advice, confirmed by them.  The whole situation was really
uncomfortable, as the mother was aware of the conflict between our standard
advice, and had in fact asked that I be brought in to educate the peds
staff.  It did succeed in getting the attention of the head of pediatrics,
though, who supported me, and we are planning steps to bring the peds'
knowledge in line with the Baby-Friendly practices on post partum.  Odd that
such a thing should be necessary since in principle they've heard it
already, but some things seem to take longer to sink in than others.

Rachel Myr
Preparing to go no mail from Lactnet this week as I travel to Cardiff to
attend the Baby-Friendly UK conference :-)
Kristiansand, Norway

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