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?

And if mum can post on mumsnet could she post on Facebook and ask a friend to bring in some food?

Charles very similary to the bone headed crap being spouted by clueless individuals with NO IDEA how much the NHS is suffering financially thinking its feasible or ideal to spend thousands monthly on feeding non patients

Sorry op, I know it is stressful being in hospital with a baby, but YABU to expect the hospital to provide meals for you. If you do t have anyone to support you nip out between feeds and stock up on breakfast bars or sandwiches, juice etc.

And the irony of saying it's necessary as it's expensive for the parent to buy food all the time... yes it's expensive that's why the NHS can't pay for it

In my experience NHS babies aren't provided with formula unless it's an emergency either and, even then, the parents are expected to bring in their own supplies as soon as possible (one go to the supermarket and the other one stay with the baby). Parents need to eat, regardless of how they are feeding their child. If you want meals provided in hospital, pay to go privately or else buy your own at an NHS hospital.

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?

The same person who looks after the baby when the mother goes to the toilet or for a wash, I expect?

My understanding is that where hospitals do this, it's largely to preserve the breastfeeding relationship, rather than the nutritional status of the mother per se- which as pointed out has to be very ropey before it impacts milk. UNICEF costed the Baby friendly hospital initiative and although it's an upfront cost, it actually saves the trust money in the long run.

www.unicef.org.uk/babyfriendly/what-is-baby-friendly/baby-friendly-costs/

**We feed and provide food/formula to non BF infants so why should BF
jelly muffin

Me: "babies be put at a nutritional disadvantage?"

You: "Ha ha! She's in hospital in the UK, not in the middle of a Somalian famine!!!!

Ok, so why should we ensure the nutritional needs of non BF babies are met but not the needs of BF babies?

How about NHS charges parents/visitors a small fee (similar to a school dinner) to be able to have a meal with the patient.

Visitor/parent gets fed for an affordable sum (compared to canteen or takeaway) and NHS raises funds.

Couldn't happen overnight but where there's a will there's a way

It seems some people begrudge ff babies being fed but not the mothers of bf babies. There are no words....

That'll be nobody then worra

It's not ironic though. There is alot of financial hardship to having a poorly child in hospital. There is a middle ground between the two. It's called empathy. We're sorry your baby is in hospital and understand the issues but unfortunately you have to buy your own food.
There isn't any need to be nasty.

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.

In that case you should learn to read and comprehend.

It'd be much better for your blood pressure...

That'll be nobody then worra

Are you speaking for every breast feeding mother in hospital, or from just your own experience?

At our hospital you can pay to opt in to the food delivery round. I didn't because a nurse would also keep an eye on the baby while you went to eat. Everything seems overwhelming when you're in hospital with a tiny baby, so things need to be made easy. I hope you're home soon.

Yes YABU. It's not a hotel. Most hospitals will offer food to parents depending on area, but it's certainly not something you are automatically entitled to, and to be honest it's attitudes like those that have got the NHS into the state it is now. Wards are pushed to breaking point to offer basic services, running around after new mums to feed them a hot meal is not a priority. Presumably you have a partner or family that are capable of buying a sandwich and bringing it to you.

Yes all our local hospitals feed breastfeeding mums , thought it was standard. By feeding the mum they are by default feeding the patient.

I find it ironic to read that the money needs to be used for important things like treating cancer when breastfeeding actually decreases the rate of breast cancer. Yes the most urgent and important is treating cancer but supporting breastfeeding should save the NHS loads of money, with all the health (physical and mental) benefits for both mother and baby.
I wouldn't expect it OP but hope it goes on as much as possible, particularly if the mum doesn't have support from family or friends.

I wouldn't expect to be fed!
YABVU

DS was in hospital at 6 weeks old, and I was fed as I was bf. It would have been difficult to have to leave him to go to the canteen, which was quite far away, and would also have been quite expensive. DH was able to bring some food in, but obviously he was at work during the day, and only parents were allowed on the ward. I think all parents who are staying with babies should have easy access to food. That being said, I'd have been perfectly happy to pay a few pounds a day for it - still way cheaper than using the canteen, and without having to leave the baby (and the hospital would be making a small profit from it). It would also have been handy to have had a kitchen to make tea, cereal, toast etc - again, I'd have been happy to pay 50p a day to cover a couple of slices of toast and some butter.

The cost does mount up when you have a baby in hospital, because you really can't leave them for long - car parking, canteen food etc all add up.

PMSL at the idea the milk supply would dry up because of one missed meal!

Stress would do it but having a sick baby is stressful as is abdicating control of your own wellbeing and nutrition to the vagaries of the NHS.

Of course, the NHS is on its knees. But I do think it's depressing that because of that, people all over Mumsnet (& the rest of Britain) are constantly being told it's the patients who are the problem - there are too many patients, too many of them are not really, properly ill (and really once you're properly ill you really ought to have the good grace to crawl off and die in a dark corner and not trouble the NHS with your palliative care, because they really need to focus resources on saveable lives, because they have NO MONEY and that is in some small part your fault for being born and costing them anything in the first place). You're some sort of enormous bloody entitled drain on the public purse for having the audacity to privately, wistfully wish for anything at all above and beyond the possibility of seeing a doctor at some point in the next six months or not being treated like shit on the sole of a shoe of some overworked, exploited, occupationally traumatised bank nurse.

If someone is living at the hospital round the clock because they are in what is essentially a symbiotic relationship with the patient, there should be some way of ensuring it's relatively easy for them to feed themselves (and thus the patient), should they not have dozens of friends and family on call to bring in picnic hampers. Because oddly enough lots of people are lone parents / live far from their families / have families who are busy taking care of their other children / etc. Hospitals provide care - but they are also where people live for significant periods of time when they need decent nutrition, and so it's really not screamingly unreasonable to think there should at least be a restaurant on site that doesn't keep weird hours.

The London hospitals I stayed in when my breastfed DD was admitted all fed breastfeeding mothers as a matter of course. And provided formula.

My hospital feeds Breast feeding mothers on the Childrens ward, it also provides formula for babies on that ward.

It doesn't provide formula for planned formula feeders on the postnatal ward

BipBippadotta quite