Carol wrote
<it is
clear to me watching the "normal" procedures in the NICU, that they cause
oral aversion. watching a baby get a bottle forced into his or her mouth,
then wiggled and rotated and shoved and other such cute tricks to "get
them
to take their feedings faster,">
After years and years of working in nurseries 3-5 decades ago, much of it
on short-staffed night shifts, I can clearly identify with what you
describe, and plead guilty as charged. I just didn't know any better at
the time. I actually felt very virtuous for "helping keep the hospital
running efficiently while the administrators, doctors, and parents
slept."
When I began to realize the significance of this some time ago after
attending a seminar by an OT-PT team, all sorts of non-infant-feeding
questions came into my mind, such as "Could this have any connection with
later anorexia nervosa, especially if the parents were taught to
forcefeed?". And could this be one factor in the later development of
other kinds of eating disorders, and adult obesity itself?"
<its clear to me, however, in observing, that there are several problems,
one
of which is a lack of connection between actions taken with babies and
results. also, caregivers obviously reach a point of complacency with
procedures that enable them to perform acts of casual cruelty without
thinking about what they are doing.>
Again, guilty as charged.
Another question popped into my mind: "Do you suppose 'Deep Throat'
started out with intubation and other high risk care?" And of course, all
sorts of further questions concerning "body memories" and "frozen
feelings" could proceed from that.
I even remember reading of something written nearly 50 years ago by John
Bowlby, a pioneer in the study of maternal-infant attachment, about an
adult who was helped to bring back repressed preverbal body memories
about a smothering feeling associated with a large firm breast being
forced into his face.
Jean Ridler posted this on LN on July 15:
<Take a look at this:
http://home.att.net/~jspeyrer/patparent.htm
Do We Have to Keep Repeating the Past? by Pat Tongren.
It has a link to an article by Dr Nils Bergman that is worth reading>
The article is very thought provoking, and though it is about an entirely
different aberration in infant care, it assures me that LN is providing a
link with those who are interested in Pre-and Perinatal psychology.
Does anyone know if any retrospective research has been considered on
those with various types of eating disorders, sexual addictions,
obsessive-compulsive disorders, etc., and the type of feeding, nursery
care and invasive procedures done on them as infants in preverbal stages?
It would be difficult to access nursery records and procedures from too
far back. And much was not entered into records years ago. (My career
started during the height of the baby boom and I remember we didn't even
have charts on babies. We used only an unofficial daily nursery feeding
workbook, with q.4 h. or 3 h. and "comments" columns, supplied by ABM
companies if I remember correctly, and long since discarded).
What has more recently been entered into the records is often done in
sort of medical shorthand that only a thoughtful practitioner who was
active during the time period when a particular procedure was in vogue
could help translate into the sensations it imposed on the baby. (Does
anyone else remember inserting needles under the skin between the
shoulder blades of a premie, first injecting hyaluronidase through the
needles to begin administering fluids through the process of
hypodermoclysis? Is it still done elsewhere in the world?)
There is so much yet to learn and disseminate into the world about the
need for UN-traumatic ways to care for babies! Especially among OB and
pediatric personnel! In the meantime, what I have been reading about
attachment parenting makes more and more sense to me.
I hasten to add, after having come through the years with something
labeled "permissive parenting", (which was interpreted in all different
ways), that as children mature, this must include providing parents with
a clear understanding of what appropriate boundaries are and when and how
to teach them.
Hopefully, we can create social conditions and health care to allow more
and more parenting to begin with a good breastfeeding experience. (But
perhaps learning attachment parenting might be doubly important with
artificial feeding, Susan,e.g. starting with elevating the baby to 45+
degrees during feeding and pacing feedings to stretch them out to 20+
minute so as to avoid choking sensations, "chugg-a-lugging" and
overfeeding.)
This is part of what keeps me motivated to try to keep on "blooming where
I am planted" and "brightening the corner where I am"! "I will pass this
way but once, and whatever good I can do . . . . . . . ."
Jean
_________________________
K. Jean Cotterman RNC, IBCLC
Dayton, Ohio
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