To say BF Mums shouldn't be getting fed if...

[daydrinker]

IF FF Mums aren't?

My local hospital always feeds the BF mums but leaves the FF ones. They have to sort themselves out.

I've been to the local hospital a good few times now with DS and always asked within an hour if I want food

If overnight stay, I'm fed 3 times a day with biscuits and tea in between. Formula feeding mums aren't offered anything.

AIBU to say this isn't fair?

My milk supply doesn't all of a sudden vanish if I'm hungry.

I think one parent for babies under say, 6 weeks, should be offered refreshments. It should possibly be at the ward’s discretion - if staying for several days or weeks then it is soul destroying having to sort out your own meals day in day out. If it’s just for a day or two and there’s a whole raft of relatives pitching up it doesn’t seem a massive priority to me.

I should add, I was pumping at this point and despite the —god awful— meals the stress of the experience still crashed my milk supply by 70% and it never fully recovered.

People don't seem to realise that it can take a long time to feed FF babies too. It's isn't always just a 15 mins job.

With my DD, it took 40 mins to get the bottle correctly in her mouth (so the milk didn't just fall out of her mouth) and then another 40 mins for her to actually drink the milk. It would take another 30 mins to burb and settle her after feeding. So that is 2 hours 10 mins taken up and when you have been told to feed her 3 hourly (day & night), you don't really get much time to do anything else.

Babies under six weeks would probably be in nicu / scbu where parents aren’t fed because they don’t have to stay 24/7. It was quite a shock to the system to then end up in the children’s ward where they tut at you if you have to leave the ward for any reason.

When I was staying on the children's ward when my baby had surgery at 1 day old, they had me expressing on a schedule that left 45 minutes max between feeds. I literally didn't leave the room for a week. So thank fuck they did feed me - one less thing to worry about at a time when it seemed like there was plenty to worry about already.

I do think that it would be nice to offer all mums on the ward a meal. But I guess resources are limited, and a line needs to be drawn somewhere.

My son was in hospital when he was a few months old. They did provide formula for him, but they only fed/gave cups of tea to bf mums. The shop was the other side of the hospital so I didn't want to leave him. My husband was away with work so I went a day without any food. It was a horrible time- worrying about my son, no sleep in a busy ward etc. I would have been very grateful for a cup of tea and more than happy to pay for it.

When my DC was in hospital before Christmas I spent all day with nothing to eat while I was getting her a doctors appointment, then taknig her and sitting for hours in A+E. My (well established and fairly robust) supply plumeted massively by the time I got to the ward, and I was really struggling to express anything for her tube feeds. Once I got some grub into me, my milk supply started to increase. Obviously a touch of dehydration and stress also played a part, but if I hadn't managed to express milk for her, they would have given her formula. I'm sure providing formula (which they had reassured me they would do if I wasn't able to express enough for her) and any issues this might cause in a poorly baby not used to it would cost the NHS more than giving me a plate of food. The mum across the ward from me gave me filthy looks, she was FF so wasn't fed. I did feel a bit sorry for her, but then she spent half the time we were there popping out for a fag and not telling the staff she was leaving her baby, so my sympthay waned.

YANBU and I’ve bf both of my kids. When DS1 had an op as a day patient at 6 months old we were in hospital from 7am-10pm and I was never offered anything. I didn’t expect to be either. Breast milk is made from mum’s blood not the food she eats.

It ultimately comes down to cost.

The ward I work on has 24 beds so if all parents were being fed lunch and dinner that’s an extra 48 meals a day that we would need to provide on top of the children’s meals. Our Paediatric unit has 5 wards, each one pretty much the same size which would mean that 240 extra meals would have to be provided each day on top of the children’s meals. Imagine doing that every day, it would be about 1500 extra meals a week and the cost of doing so would all be taken out of the Trust’s, and probably the Paediatric department’s budget. Im pretty sure that huge amount of money would be much better spent on other things personally.

As a Paediatric Unit we already cover the parking costs of parents who have to stay overnight and this itself takes a good amount of money from our monthly budget, never mind also having to cover the costs of feeding parents three times a day too.

We do have a ward kitchen where there are freezers, fridges, cupboards, tea/coffee facilities and microwaves etc which all parents can use.

Have had a baby spend 2 weeks in neonatal. I was able to order food if I wanted and no-one asked how I was feeding (I expressing for my tube fed baby!)

Had my FF child spend 3 nights on a paed ward but he was weaned by then (13 months) so food was for him only. I had people drop food in / popped out to grab something.

I did have another stint on paed ward with a 4yo and due to the fact he was in isolation (he was admitted with severe dehydration due to sickness bug) no-one came to visit and I went best part of 24h without hardly any food!! I didn't realise no fucker was going to come and see us [DP had other child] and I didn't feel able to leave poorly DC as we were in a room, not on a ward, so he wasn't being obsevered as such. I only had my card - so would have been 20 minutes to shop or hospital cafe - and DC was so ill and upset, I didn't want to leave

Nurse did offer to make me toast which I accepted and inhaled and I was kept watered. Ironically I was still feeding my other DC, but they were 2 and fully weaned (was just feeding her at night!)

OP, I think you need to be a bit clearer.

This isn't about maternity wards. It is about food for parents accompanying children into hospital.

Our hospital has this policy.

The child is the patient, not the parent. I am not really sure why the parent would get fed, to be honest. Obviously most parents do accompany a young child in hospital, but it isn't compulsory, and many don't. They visit and leave overnight care etc to the nursing staff.

However, BF babies do have to have the mother there. Or at least for feeding. If a baby is bf the Dad can do the overnight stays, but with a BF baby it has to be the mum.

so, I see it as supporting the baby's needs, nothing to do with a value judgement over BF / FF.

Also, you talk as if hospital food is something that you would actually want!

(Most children's wards have a parents room with fridge / microwave / bread and toaster, tea and coffee).

I think they should feed all primary carers. I've spent quite a significant amount of time in hospital with one of mine and have seen many a mother who does not have the money to buy food from the canteen. Our hospital allow tea/coffee and toast for breakfast but if your child is in for weeks and you are only able to eat a slice of toast in the morning then it takes its toll on you.

When my 5 day old was admitted to hospital due to issues with latch and having lost over 20% of her birth weight, she and I were in hospital for 3 full days and 2 nights. I was ebf her, including pumping between feeds to cup feed her to avoid her being tube fed. I want even offered a jug of water, so dh had to go back and forward with Tesco sandwiches and the like. I remember the paediatric doctor being horrified that I wasn’t being fed etc (I was also only 5 days post emcs and having to crawl on and off a metal cot bed to feed her in the night!), but the hospital policy was to only provide refreshments for the patient, so there was nothing the nurses could do about it.

"As a Paediatric Unit we already cover the parking costs of parents who have to stay overnight "

Wow! Never had that!

Another blatant unfairness! Car parking pad for those that drive in, not fair for those who got a taxi, bus or came in an ambulance!

Do the hospital provide the formula for ff baby? You could argue that the money goes on feeding baby that way rather than indirectly via tea for mum.

Sorry if someone asked this already- I skimmed the thread.

.....not fair for those who got a taxi, bus or came in an ambulance!

So now Paediatric units should be expected to pay for taxi and bus fares too now? Blimey. There’ll be no money left at all to actually look after the sick children at this rate

If the ward expects you to stay with the child then the parent should get fed. We had to have a rota when DH's toddler niece was in because she wasn't allowed to be left alone, but her mother had to eat. On the days where no one could go in she had crisps and crackers from a vending machine near the toilets (that could have had much more useful stuff in it!) and that involved asking another parent to keep an eye on the child for a few minutes.

(No one being available was unexpected or we'd have planned better - before someone asks why we didn't)

Do the hospital provide the formula for ff baby? You could argue that the money goes on feeding baby that way rather than indirectly via tea for mum.

We provide the formula on admission as we anticipate parents don’t carry tubs of it around with them but then we ask parents to bring their own in for the duration of their baby’s stay.

Can you imagine how expensive it would be to provide formula to 20+ babies a day who are each having 6 feeds a day etc? But even if that wasn’t the issue, we are are working towards the UNICEF Baby Friendly standard so we can’t be seen to endorse formula feeding anyway.

Strange- my ds was admitted aged 3 and had to spend almost a week. They had student nurses sit with him when I ran home and got some essentials (having taken him in and obviously not known he would be so seriously sick), swung by a Tesco express and got a microwave meal for the night and was back in under an hour. Where a meal was waiting for me. The staff told me that as my son depended on me they would provide meals and tea/coffee. Bless them

Babies are only in the neonatal ward directly from birth in the hospital I attended. If they have been home they go into a separate children's ward to avoid spreading infection.

This whole thread is pointless because it was ambiguous- one third are responding as if it's about a new born, one third as if the patient isn't being fed, and only one third as it was meant - the mum is visiting with her child who is the patient.

Of course it would be lovely if all visitors got fed, free food for everyone, bring the family, woo hoo.

You aren't going to convert anyone from FF to BF by doing this so the only points can be to save money and demonstrate that FF mothers are second class.

To be honest the overt discrimination against FF mother in our early years healthcare system is so palpably obvious that even I, an emotionally tone-deaf male, has been upset by it at times (knowing that my DW tried her very best to BF all our children but couldn't).

Most hospitals make ff mum supply the formula too. Remember most of the really sick babies you’ll see are premie and therefore have to be ff - have seen single mums not leave their kids for twenty-four hours straight, not eat, not even to go to the toilet, while bf mums sitting next to partners and with far less sick babies are given a full meal.

The system isn’t fair. Should be anyone with a partner doesn’t get a meal - as that partner should sort it out.