Hello everyone,
I have a five month old son, who was born prematurely at 34 weeks and was in intensive and then special care for a total of three weeks.
While I was pregnant I decided I really wanted to breastfeed. As soon as he was born they took him away and the midwife told me that 'they would probably have to give him some formula' in intensive care, despite my saying repeatedly that I wanted to breastfeed. I was then discharged from hospital and told nothing about expressing milk etc. I was very dazed and confused at this point and it was all down to my husband who is a vet and has worked with dairy cows and knows all about the ins and outs of lactation in animals (!) that we realised that we must do something to get my milk supply going. When we visited the hospital to see our boy we asked about using a breastpump and were shown a room containing about ten pumps and left to it. I asked the woman who showed us to the room about how often I should express and she basically shrugged her shoulders and said she didn't know.
Anyway, thanks to the power of the internet I found out what to do and established a good milk supply so that my son didn't have to receive any formula.
I must say that I found the hospital absolutely crap about encouraging breastfeeding for prematures. We live about 30 miles from the hospital and I kept telling them to ring me if my milk ran out in the freezer and I would rush some more in but I went in one day to find a nurse giving my son some formula and was enraged! None of the nurses seemed to know anything about positioning or when my son might be ready to try breastfeeding. I was the only mother on the whole of the special care unit (to my knowledge) that was trying to breastfeed. When I was rooming in to try and get feeding established and my son was very unhappy and cleary not feeding properly I asked one of the nurses for help and she said 'go back to your room. If you ask for help I will have to write on your record that you are not coping'!!! I was also told that my nipples were too small and that I should go and buy some nipple shields (complete rubbish). I was also told when experiencing breastfeeding difficulties 'just put him on formula, you'll get him home much quicker that way'.
Anyway, I did eventually get breastfeeding established but I just wanted to see what other people's experiences were and say that it would be so great if someone with breastfeeding experience could perhaps visit a special care unit to give advice and encourage mothers who want to breastfeed. Not sure how it would/could work. Seems unbelievable to me that it is so important for these babies to get breastmilk, yet the staff are so not bothered half the time.
Sorry this has turned into such a long post. I would like to add that I don't have anything against mothers that decide to ff premature babies for whatever reason!
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Infant feeding
Breastfeeding a premature baby
6 replies
Sterny · 31/01/2007 13:27
OP posts:
Muminfife ·
31/01/2007 15:34
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