Hospital should feed breastfeeding mums?

[NurseRosie]

AIBU to think that if your baby is in hospital and Mum is staying as fully breastfeeding, the ward should feed Mum? The NHS is not spending money feeding the baby as mummy us making the milk. Baby feeding sometimes 2 hourly and very clingy as unwell. Ward have only given tea and biscuits. Restaurant expensive and open funny times, for example baby upset over lunch yesterday so didn't get down until 2 and they'd stopped serving hopt food for the day. Do you think they should offer mum a meal?

I think they should provide food for you op but I'm not surprised they don't.

I spent 18 years in and out of GOSH and Kings College with my DD many years ago. (Literally from birth) I have never ever been offered any food, neither would I expect it. However, I do wish the accessible food had been more reasonably priced in the cafes. My Grandson was recently in a London hospital and again, my DD wasn't offered food, however the parents room had a microwave which I think is brilliant

people are so naive and simplistic as to the funds that are actually available in the NHS and to what PATIENTS themselves have to lack let alone non patients with entitlement issues

The way I see it is that the NHS appreciates that nutrition is an important factor of recovery hence why they feed patients to ensure they are getting food and the only source of nutrition an EBF baby gets is from its mother ergo it makes logical sense that the mother needs to be fed.

We feed and provide food/formula to non BF infants so why should BF babies be put at a nutritional disadvantage?

I was NOT currently moaning breadt feeding to cancer. I was simply saying having any child hospitalised is flipping hard on the parents and a little support and goodwill goes a long way.

I understand why the NHS doesn't always do it (although could be a false economy imo) but if op feels parents should be provided with food there are ways to make that happen

I'm really confused. Are they providing meals for patients any more? Or is this thread about outpatients?

But support and goodwill costs money. The NHS has no money. Why is it such a struggle for people to get their heads round this?

Why have you posted his twice

If anyone feels strongly that it should happen then perhaps they could set up a support group for their local hospital where they could bring food in for people?

Oh is the baby in hospital?

It is expensive having children in hospital, I think the cost is under estimated by those that have no experience but you need to take food from home and plan ahead. I hope the baby is better soon

WorraLiberty 'Or JustEat' yes but (a) not in all areas (b) not always allowed round the clock (c) its very expensive to use regularly if you don't have much income

Carers kitchenette used to be a cost effective way of enabling parents with longish term inpatient children as it allowed small amounts of supermarket price food to be brought in and prepped.

Dont: Breastfeeding is a lifestyle choice dons helmet and gets popcorn

Didn't a woman die of a heart attack in an NHS hospital corridor recently after waiting there for 36 hours to be seen? Maybe that will give you some perspective. I don't mean to sound harsh but that is the state of things right now with the NHS. The public have leaned too heavily on it for too long and are now paying the price.

Why would it be the responsibility of the NHS to provide food for a Mother? In the case of a Mother who had no money or was unable to leave child why couldn't social services, a charity or even the local council step in to provide an answer and assistance? The NHS are on their knees and still people have their hands out saying "I want more." Not quite sure if I'm more shocked or disgusted at that really.

Joke, I don't imagine the OP did it on purpose, do you?

Probably a glitch.

OP are you a patient? In a bed? If so yanbu.

If you are going into hospital daily and coming home in the evening then yabu. Take snacks!!

I always thought it was mum who suffered more rather than baby if there were nutrition issues? I'm pretty sure that's what all the hardcore bf advocates say when they bang on about how fantastic and versatile bf is

But now a breastfeeding mum, who is normally otherwise eating well and probably has plenty of stores in her body has to miss a few hot meals the baby will suffer because her milk won't be up to scratch?

Can't have it both ways.

To those who say the hospital shouldn't feed mothers...who is supposed to look after the baby while they are going to buy some food?

Also in the grand scheme of things, the cost of providing hospital foods is nothing compared to that of paying GPs, consultants,etc some of whom know so little you have to go back again and again to get adequate treatment. Shouldn't this be addressed first? The level of knowledge amongst some consultants is absolutely shocking.

We feed and provide food/formula to non BF infants so why should BF babies be put at a nutritional disadvantage?
Ha ha! She's in hospital in the UK, not in the middle of a Somalian famine!!!!

The NHS cannot operate as the current level never mind feed non patients. Quite apart from that, hospital food is usually inedible. Get your partner or friends to bring in flasks of soup and sandwiches. Or are you yet another poster with zero friends and family?

Yes Livia,that's why I suggested the OP and her community could set up a charity to do it, if she feels strongly that it's necessary

And the sense of entitlement behind 'they feed ff children so they should feed bf mothers so it's equal or fair' is a joke.

By that logic I should be given the equivalent amount of child benefit every month despite not have children because I'm costing the government less by not having them and why should parents have something non-parents don't?

Jesus. I've read a lot of bone-headed shit on this site but glibly, blithely and without an ounce of awareness, self or otherwise, stating that Just Eat is the answer to the myriad financial and practical problems a nursing mother faces when her baby is in hospital must surely qualify for some kind of award.

But did she ask? There's always a few sandwiches in the ward kitchen for patients arriving after the kitchen is closed. I would be shocked if they had told her no if they were aware of her situation (not able to leave baby at all until the canteen was shut, presumably no vending machines, no family not sure I believe all those factors were there )

Still no obligateion to feed parents. Where do you stop? Poor old man whose wife has been admitted? Relative on ICU? Someone on benefits with no money?

Feed patients. The rest is discretionary

No more ridiculous than expecting the NHS to fund feeding parents as well as all the tests/treatment for their child

Plenty of parents do order take away, it's makes us nurses salivate when they walk in the door with it.

When my daughter was in hospital I had to sign an agreement to say I wouldn't leave her alone on the ward (she has a severe disability and there had been a major safeguarding issue the previous year) I would go and fetch something to eat when the play therapist came for an hour. She came to all children who couldn't be left an hour. It gave me an hour to have something to eat, buy something for later and to get some fresh air :) my friends had a collection and put some money on a gift card so I could buy food from a shop in the hospital