conflicting midwife advice about BF

[chrisandcarrie]

My wife gave birth to our 2nd son on wednesday and since then (5days), 3 midwives have seen her, and given 3 seperate opinions on how to breastfeed. She had started off comfortably and was happy with how she was feeding him, and the midwives in the hospital seemed happy too.
she then saw another midwife the next day, when we were back home, who told her to try something else, and organised to see another midwife the next day (our midwife was on days off) who came round and contradicted what had been said a day before.
It left her in tears today and saying she cant feed our boy, but thankfully she calmed down, and I'd like to think I helped with that, and went back to the way she started feeding him and hopefully she's back on track now.
anybody else experienced these sort of problems, and is it worth me complaining to someone, as it upset my wife and nearly led to her abandoning breast feeding.

Congratulations on you DS and sorry to hear you've been having trouble with the MWs! Unfortunately I had the same problems...one MW would come in and say "no don't do it like that, do it like this", OK I would take this new approach only for the next MW to walk in and shout "no, never do it like that, you must do it entirely differently".

In retrospect it's almost funny, these were professional people at the same hospital and couldn't even co-ordinate enough to say "there are different ways of doing it, pick the one that works for you", but at the time it was frustrating, off-putting and stressful.

Is your wife managing to bf without pain? Is the baby sucking well and showing signs of putting on weight? If yes she should continue doing what she is doing and not pay one iota of attention to the MWs. If she has any problems I would strongly recommend asking on here, Mumsnetters seem to be seriously more well informed than MWs on bf.

I would complain - I think there's a supervisor of midwives at the hospital, or an infant feeding co-ordinator. Let them know the effect all the conflicting advice had on your wife, and suggest they need their training updated!

If your wife is happy with how she's feeding, then I'd say her opinion on the matter is more important than the midwives (so long as the baby is getting enough milk of course). My ds was never a "textbook" breastfeeder either but we did fine!

I had 15 midwives and 15 different sets of advice - but at least I was always asking for help, it sounds as if your wife wasn't even asking for any of the advice she got! It sounds as if the worst is over - I certainly hope so.

thank you, she seemed happier when I told her what you said, I shall be complaining again tomorrow, seems that since I've had ds ive got more grumpy!
shes going back to how she did it to start with!

Please do take this further - every day on mumsnet, people post in confusion and frustration because they are given conflicting advice much of which is actually wrong, and some of which actually makes bf more difficult :(

You can find out who is the breastfeeding lead person in your PCT (if you are in England). You could also tell the maternity unit but it sounds that this issue arose with the community midwives.