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 agree with you, but not just for breastfeeding mothers.'

I lived with my daughter whilst she was inpatient. 8 months. Her treatment for cancer costs hundreds of thousands of pounds. I cannot believe anyone thinks the NHS should also have fed me, too. I'm an adult. That's my responsibility, it's a hospital, not a hotel. Can't believe people think a hospital should be catering to non-patients, too. Hey, why not just open the doors to all and sundry? It can be a catering hall, a shelter, a hotel.

At any rate, 'mummy makes the milk' and the OP's tone reeks of The Daily Heil.

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

So that would be nobody at all then in my experience as I just left the door open so I could keep watch if my DH wasn't there. Luckily I had a room to myself so was able to do so.

The NHS can't provide free food and childcare as well as medical care, and be able to cope!

YpHoHo they might as a one off but I can't see many parents loving on takeout for months on end.
If OP has a small baby, I imagine she's not going home at all - hospitals expect you to be there attending to your screaming child and talking to the doctors not going home to pop a stew on

I wasn't fed and had to rely on crappy stodgy canteen meals and sandwiches. I felt crap by the end of the week and told them I was going home for some decent food. Surprisingly we both thrived within a few days.

When he was in SCBU we were not even allowed (I offered to buy one) a microwave

I agree joke, takes absolutely should be raised. Just 1 or 2 % would make a big difference.

It isn't just parents who are breastfeeding who would struggle to leave their child though so that's a bit of a difficult argument. I am a single parent ds was 8 weeks old when he was first in. Leaving him wasn't possible irrespective of how he was fed (actually he was to ill to feed anyway)

I was lucky my parents were able to bring food in for me and still Do now 7 years down the line when he is admitted (leaving him now he is older is much harder too!)

Note: I totally agree with those making the argument that some trusts can't afford to do long term stuff like maintaining the bfing relationship any more - trusts are cutting where they can. Patient groups/charities to fill in are a rational and practical response.

My beef is with those taking the opportunity to be spiteful.

But why should they feed you? You are more than able to find food for yourself or ask others to bring it in for you. Yes, it takes a bit of forward planning but, as a new parent, you manage to provide yourself with food at home....do you suddenly lose those skills because your child is in hospital?

I am tired of hearing how the NHS should do everything for everyone. Yes, it would be great if all wards had a relatives' area with a kettle, microwave and fridge. Some do, some don't. Generally the funds for such facilities are raised through charities but it also relies on there being sufficient space and the funding to maintain those facilities in the long-term.

As previous posters have said, if this is an issue you feel strongly about then take action to raise funds and do something about it. Just don't sit there expecting everyone to rally round because you are a breastfeeding mother who wants something to eat. The NHS is having to prioritise patient care...your needs are not a priority when lives need to be saved.

This is an actual person with a very tiny baby in hospital. Maybe stop sneering at her phrasing and show some fucking human empathy.

Unfortunately I have alot of experience of hospitals as my sister had a chronic illness when I was growing up. My mum was allowed to use the staff kitchen which had bread, butter, tea, coffee, cereals, milk, milkshake, fruit etc in. You didn't have to pay for car parking in those days either (the 80s)

They still have a parent's room/kitchen st the hospital my daughter stays in though. We are lucky by the sounds of it.

Formula fed babies need their mums near and feeding them too.

Women all round the world produce milk just fine on restricted diets( so MN never stops telling us).

Love the way mums with older children in for serious problems are deemed less worthy of being fed than a BF mother whose child may be less ill by some.

When my mil was in Intensive Care my fil who was in his 80s and barely holding it together didn't get free food and had to drag himself to a pub on the way home for a hot meal for months which was the last thing he felt like doing.

The sense of entitlement some bfing mothers have never fails to amaze me.

'YpHoHo they might as a one off but I can't see many parents loving on takeout for months on end.'

No, in that case they go home for bits at a time and make sandwiches and nibbles to bring in. Or if they are far they go into Ronald Macdonald House. Or in my case it's a long-term unit so there's a parent kitchen - it has a microwave and fridge and kettle so you ate stuff like Pot Noodle with tinned tuna or chicken mixed in, ready meals, etc. Not ideal but you have to deal.

MudCity the patient isn't being fed by the NHS. The mother should be fed in lieu. This is the set up in the majority of trusts. Are you going to campaign for hospitals to stop wasting money on feeding exclusively breastfeeding mothers?! Good luck with that. Maybe you could write to your MP...

I think resident parents should either be provided with food or given the oportunity to buy or make it cheaply. Some hospitals have very restricred canteen/shop options and if parents dont have family nearby it can be very difficult for them to get a hot meal. I dont know why there cant be an option for parents to choose from the patoent menu and may the cost (a couple of pounds as most). At least then there would be an option for people.

I agree slightlyglittery. It's completely uncalled for.
I'm not sure I'd have been as pleasant as the OP if I'd ever post when my dd is in. I don't cope well on no sleep in that heat!

And a nurse keeping an eye on an ill baby while in hospital isn't the NHS providing free childcare FFS. The Tory government have trained people to have such ridiculously low expectations. The hospital my DD was in a few weeks ago did this unquestioningly and actually encouraged me to take longer breaks. They also offer a free childcare facility to leave your non patient kids in while you have appointments or visit. Not in the UK, obviously.

Expat, not all parents have access to the sick children's parents home. We never have.
I had to stay in a hostel when my dd was in icu, which I was very grateful for. They had tea, coffee, milk, sugar, cereal and biscuits in the kitchen though too. Thank goodness.

This is an actual person with a very tiny baby in hospital. Maybe stop sneering at her phrasing and show some fucking human empathy

Also it is not the fault of the mums of sick babies that the NHS is on its knees, read this:

www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2017/01/true-british-values-nhscrisis/comment-page-1/#comment-647552

Expat I've just checked and I haven't read the OP properly I see (that will teach me to skim read). Absolutely not then, for either breastfeeding or non! I don't see why they would or should expect to be fed in those circumstances.

I thought the OP was about people after giving birth. That's why I was talking about people in dressing gowns going down to the cafeteria. I was in a post natal ward with the lunch ordering, before the planned procedure!

This:
"And a nurse keeping an eye on an ill baby while in hospital isn't the NHS providing free childcare FFS. The Tory government have trained people to have such ridiculously low expectations."

'not all parents have access to the sick children's parents home. We never have. '

I didn't, either, Owl. You do what you can to work round it when you're not a patient. I learned how to do things like boil an egg in a kettle, all sorts. It's not ideal but my child was the patient, not me.

When I had a breastfed newborn on children's ward I was given meal tokens for the restaurant.
Unfortunately as I was on my own (DH was with the other DC) there was no one to get food/look after the baby while I got food. I lived on tea, a packet of biscuits and a tube of Pringles from the trolley.

I now volunteer at the hospital taking the trolley round and suggested we add sandwiches, soup pots, crackers with cheese portions, and fresh fruit to the trolley alongside the usual chocolate, crisps and magazines.

And a nurse keeping an eye on an ill baby while in hospital isn't the NHS providing free childcare FFS.

I agree, keeping an eye is one thing but that same nurse will have lots of children/babies under his/her care and cannot just stay with one child whilst the parent goes off for a wash or the loo. It just is not practical, reasonable and realistically it does not happen. What happens is that the child is quite often left alone in a (hopefully) safe ward with a nurse intermittently popping in if there is time to do so.

Am surprised the 'Mumsnet fight against full time nursing mothers hoping for ward meals' has so many members

In answer i said to the nurse in charge I'd only been offered hot water and was hungry to which was offered for staff to "keep an eye" on lo so I could go to the canteen. I was nervous about this as the baby next door on their own was crying for half hour last before a nurse picked it up.