How many of you felt let down by the hospital staff when you wanted to bf your newborn baby?

[Cazee]

Reading Jetjets' story has made me really mad. I remember the hospital staff taking my baby away from me after my emergency cesarean, saying "we have to give him formula or his blood sugar will drop". I am still really sad about it. He was 10 days overdue, not even pre-term, so I really don't believe that it was necessary, but at the time I felt as if I had been run over by a truck, I was in real shock, and I didn't know how to fight the hospital staff. When we are at our weakest we need health professionals to give us support and accurate advice, but in too many cases it seems that we are let down

tiktok - thanks, think you're totally right, if she hadn't been allowed to call herself a bf counsellor it would have made a huge difference because I'd then have had the impetus to call NCT or la leche but my tired addled brain thought she must know what she was doing and anyone else would just do the same stuff.

Now I've had the benefit of hindsight the problems are obvious - because dd had jaundice and group b strep she was just too tired and sick to make the effort herself and the mw's should have had the knowledge to see this, especially when her weight was steadily dropping. Instead they were only concerned with getting the right latch and as soon as they thought they'd done it they wandered off, while dd promptly fell asleep and fell off.

Think far too much 'help' is focused on reiterating the same 'technical' knowledge over and over, such as the latching positions. What I needed, and I'm sure many people need, was just a LOT of time, so I could show someone how bad dd was at feeding and get some advice.

Can't believe that they get it so wrong, its so sad.

I havent read all of these, but so many of the stories sound just like mine. They manhandle the baby and your breat, get them latched on then wander off. I needed someone with me to help me do it myself, explain why ds would pull away etc etc. I had comments like "god you'll suffocate him like that" (very upset that I might be putting ds in danger) and "if your toes are curling you know it is working" "dont worry babies cry" (err great, but how do I latch on on my own) etc etc.

with all the long term health benefits of bf for mum and baby I just dont understand why more time is not dedicated to this, it just seems to shortsighted, not to mention all the emotional upset it causes.

Ditto here. Was devastated when BF didnt work out for us - lack of continuity of advice was, IMO, the root cause of it going wrong. 5 different MW in 7 days in my first week back home. Ridiculous.

DD1 i wanted to breastfeed. the midwives idea of helping me was to grab my boob and ram it in her mouth. i had no help with latching and no help afterwards as well. dd1 lost a lot of weight and was very slow to gain. she was a lazy feeder (even with bottles, took her ages) and really wasnt interested herself in feeding. had to wake her for feeds. by 6 weeks, after being topped up with formula i gave up breastfeeding. and then her eczema which had been there since birth worsened considerably. a tiny part of me still feels sad about breastfeeding experience with dd1.

dd2 very hungry easy to latch baby. gained loads of weight in the first week, didnt lose. but very hungry all the time. she was and still is a big girl (off all charts by 6months old, extremly tall) and was lead to be;live that because she was hungy al lthe time (and still gaining) that my milk wasnt enough. by 8 weeks, due to sheer exhaustion she was on formula. looking back she was quite possibly going through a growth spurt.

dd3, determined to breastfeed as long as possible with the help of mumsnetters and going back to the hospital where i had dd2. she was induced at 38weeks due to me having gestional diabetes. She had very low blood sugars in the first 24hours. A lovely midwife, knowing about dd1+2 allergies and eczema, helped me express to try and boost sugar levels. i was feeding dd3 every hour at one point, but still levels wouldnt rise. they suggested a bottle. i said no as was wanting to breastfeed. so we compromised with a feeding tube, and me breastfeeding before each tube feed as well. she was in SCBU for 24hours. by the time she came back on the ward the lovely midwife was back on and we decided to try just a breastfeed and no feeds down the tube to see if blood sugars stabilised. did 3 or 4 breastfeeds with no dips, and then removed the tube. we ended up having 4 days in hospital which also helped in getting breastfeeding started and established to a point. with the help of mumsnetters support i breastfeed dd2 untill april when she was 2years and 2months old.

Oh My God,am so pleased that this thread was started as am ttc my 2nd and how I feel around DS birth and bf still haunts me now!

DS birth was straight forward and I was very lucky as I turned up at the hospital ready to push. The midwife assistant read my birth plan and commented on it and how I WANTED to breastfeed and would need support with it. She left and then the nmidwife came in as I was pushing!

After DS was born had it not been for DP and my mum, DS would have been placed away from me and not skin to skin like I had stated ready to encourage bf.

When asking the labour midwife to help me bf she shoved my nipple in to DS mouth and left me to it! This resulted in him sucking for nearly 2hours not getting anything but causing my nipple to blister and bleed!

Going up on to the post natal ward the staff shortage was another reason I believe that I was not given the support with the correct position and latching. When asking the midwife what I need to do to make it more comfortable I was told that it was fine but if not to top him up with formula!

Having coming home and having no support really from the community midwifes in the fact that he was never bf when they came, I felt terrible and didnt feed him on the sore nipple.

When I did get the courage to ask I was told that I had the correct latch and to carry on but he was a hungry baby! The midwife reccomended topping him up again.

Having spent 10days feeling sleep deprived and really low for boobs! lol! I gave in and feed him formula!

He is now 9mths old and I still wonder whether I did the right thing and wish I had known about mn and all the support that was out there for bf, I would have tried to carry on and sometimes feel that had I of done this pnd would not have been so bad

If I do conceive I will be doing even more research on bf and the support that is available to me. I am DETERMINED to bf my next child if it kills me as I now look at bf mums with such sadness in my heart that I didnt get my main want on my birth plan and good start in DS life.

Sorry such a long rant but needed to get it off my chest being sitting there 9mths

xxxxx

I had NO support BF and was in hospital for 5 days after as my BP didn't come down after delivery.

Within 2 days of getting home I had REALLY cracked nipples and thrush.

With heinsight I'm so annoyed they didn't help me out with latching on AT ALL, I can see why o many mums give up. If my DD hadn't been so small so would I!!

Haven't read all the posts, but my experience was also crappy. I am very proud that I am still bfing my 6 mo dd. But only because I am a stubborn old cow!
I have flat nipples and dd was born by c section and very drowsy and had a squashed up head from having it bashed onto my pelvis for 3 days prior to being born (a lovely labour i had but thats another story!) and was not into feeding or latching on at all. The amount of times a mw shoved my boob into her mouth and turned round and walked out again was amazing.
Why do the NCT (or Leche thingy) not come into the hospitals? Does anyone know why? I had the bf counsellor out a couple of hellish days after coming out of hosp and she was brilliant.

which email minister woman/man needs a link to this page?

my tired brain can't seem to remember which one was talking about homebirths but at the same time changing the regulations that would make independent midwifery near impossible. also about the chronic staff shortages on wards?

I have my own horror story to tell.

me I asked repeatedly for help and weas told that there were women who were in more need than me so left hospital not knowing how to breastfeed and not surprisingly gave up early.

pamplemousse - you ask why breastfeeding counsellors from (for example) NCT or LLL don't come into hospitals.

The answer is there are hardly any of us.

Some do visit maternity wards, but only on (say) a weekly basis, and because we are all volunteers, and small in number (only a few hundred over the entire country - and 600,000 babies are born every year, about 450,000 of them breastfeeding) it's not something that could ever be rolled out as a national programme.

I have said before on mumsnet the answer is to use the people who are there are already, and whose job it is to get bf going well, and train them properly...ie the midwives.

Most volunteer breastfeeding support is done after the mothers come back home, and we speak to mothers in the weeks, months and years afterwards. Sometimes, we are mopping up 'train wreck' situations that have gone badly wrong in the first few days, and actually, sometimes, the confidence of the mum has gone by that time.

Volunteers do a great job, on the whole (though we do get it wrong sometimes) but we are very limited in time and number

BTW did you all contact your MP to check if s/he has signed up in support of new Breastfeeding manifesto? This is a great start to addressing the issues. I got a letter from mine today saying her had. I'll do a link..

Breastfeeding Manifesto

Come on ladies.Channel this anger and sadness into something positive that will make a difference to other women.

kiskidee it was Patricia Hewitt who this April said that women would be guaranteed "a full range of birthing choices" by April 2009, yet seems to be presiding over the closure of many maternity units and a move to stop hundreds of midwives practising (and despite what the government are saying, I don't think the situation with the independent midwives is sorted yet, just postponed).

saveindependentmidwives link

And I have my own stories too. Ds1 ended up in special care on day 3 and I believe he would have been fine had I had better support with breastfeeding him in the first two days.

I walked round with him screaming for most of those days and the only help I had was of the aforementioned 'shoving head on breast, then going away' type. At one point I was told by the 'helpful' midwives at the desk that they would look after him for a bit for me as he was probably reacting to my stress. I specifically remember at least two midwives sitting at the desk at this time and no other women asking for help - so why didn't they help me breastfeed him instead of taking him away from me? Presumably because they hadn't even taken that optional bit of their training and didn't think it was terribly important anyway.

On his second day the midwife who was supposed to be around and had said 'call me any time you try to feed him' was taken to the short-staffed labour ward (as she appeared to be one of the few midwives in the hospital who actually liked attending deliveries) therefore leaving the post-natal ward seriously understaffed. No one else appeared interesting in helping me breastfeed. And when he started to shut down, to be honest, I was just relieved that the incessant screaming had stopped.

Then the midwife's response when she finally came to help me out, just before he ended up in special care, was to ask if it was okay to give him a bottle of formula - because his blood sugar levels were dangerously low. I considered myself fairly well educated but I really didn't know then what I know now - there were so many other options and she didn't have to do that. Yet I bowed to what I thought was her superior knowledge and experience and let her rub that rubber teat on the bridge of his little mouth and try to make him suck the foreign substance.

He was in Special Care for 5 days and I expressed religiously - oh yes, they were far better at showing me how the breast pump worked than how to feed my baby directly from my breast. If I tried to breastfeed him in Special Care they would still give him a 'top up' afterwards because they couldn't measure how much milk he'd actually had from me - despite on some occasions seeing the milk spilling out of his tiny stomach and ng tube after the topup. And they told me off when I came to see him more often than the four hour pattern they forced him into, because when I did that, I woke him up and he wanted me again.

Almost incidentally, he ended up with cow's milk intolerance and I don't know how significant that first bottle of formula was, but I will always wonder.

Wow, it's five years ago now and I still feel very and about it all. And yes, I have signed the breastfeeding manifesto because it's disgusting that so many women and babies go through these experiences.

I had an independent midwife for ds2's birth, which was wonderful, but then he had severe reflux which lasted until about 2 years old, and that's another story... but at least I managed to breastfeed him all that time.

me. i really wanted to do it but didn't know how. the mws didn't help. my mw had been fantastic throughout my labour but just after ds was born she went off duty. she did try and help me but then passed it over to the next mw. the person who took over seemed to forget about me. i was still trying to bf hours later when she came in and said as he hadnt had a feed yet we would have to give him a bottle. so i did. then of course ds had experienced this fast flow from a bottle and wouldn't even entertain the idea of feeding from me

did eventually get help from la leche and nct after advice on MN but ds would still only sometimes feed from me

I've contacted my MP about both the manifesto and the early day motion to save independent midwifery. He did not have the courtesy to reply to either request and has not supported either campaign.

That's Mohammad Sarwar, Labour MP for Glasgow Central by the way. Not getting my vote again.

I went in determined to breastfeed and got so much pressure to do so that it very nearly put me off. The other new mums who chose to use formula were treated with thinly-disguised disdain.

Message withdrawn

I had a planned section for a breech baby, and in recovery the midwives helped me b/feed by doing a lot of tugging and shoving! I was determined to feed her, she had a good feed in recovery, but then she did not seem bothered for a while.

Various midwives showed me various positions, all were confusing in my kind of coming-off-drugs-very-tired brain. I dont think she drank anything on the second day for most of the day. There was one BRILLIANT midwife, she was feeding her own baby at home and was very pro feeding. She sat with me for HOURS to help me, and eventually we got DD latched on and feeding.

The day afterwards, I couldn't get her to latch on. I struggled with the right positions, she wasn't interested, in the end the lovely midwife got the expresser for me and we fed her from a cup. I was due to go home the next afternoon.

Next day, I called for a m/w and asked for help with positioning as I thought dd was hungry. Different midwife, she had a go at me, said I clearly wasn't ready to go home if I couldn't do it (bearing in mind I'd sobbed the night before as I was desperate to get home) and what would I do at home without help, let her starve.

More tears. An hour later, DD did feed.

I left the hospital, first night really difficult and nearly broke and gave in with a bottle, but got through it.

Saw a health visitor who asked me how it was going, she checked positioning etc but no advice.

Eventually, just through sheer determination to get that horrible midwife out of my head, we cracked it.

I fed until she was just over 18 months old (now 19 months).

I plan to b/feed again when we have another baby. But I think without that first midwife, I would have given up.

just for the record, another let-down (no pun intended) mum here. to cut the story short, i think i came within 2-3 hrs of giving up bf my dd on day 5.

during 3 days hospital stay i must have come across 20 mw who ranged from the indifferent to downright incompetent - none managed to get dd to feed. 2 people made all the difference - a bf counsellor who turned up on day 2 and helped dd get latched on and get a good colostrum feed (she had nothing for 36 hrs after birth) and the community mw who came home on day 5 and calmly assured me she would not leave until dd had fed, and we did it in the end.

it took c. 3hrs in total from people who knew what they were doing to sort out the feeding. i think the rude and careless mw's who bullied me for 3 days in hospital took 3 times as long to achieve nothing. had they known what they were doing i would and should have been out of the hospital in 24hrs freeing up resources for people who really needed them.

dd is still exclusively bf now at 20 wks but it was a VERY close call. i am very grateful to the two women who had the professionalism but also the care to sort us out. shame they seem to be in a minority.

I transfered from a birth centre with private midwives to a hospital and had an emergency c-section. This hospital has some special bf award or certificate but you would never think it. Baby was totally uninterested in bf when born but was a big fat thing so no worries as far as me and private mw were concerned. Mw and dp had to leave as it was 10pm and i was put in a broken bed which would only lie flat so no chance of trying to bf. Me and baby lay together all night alone except for 2 visits to see if i wanted to give her formula.

In the morning private mw arrived and started helping me try to bf which annoyed the hospital staff who started saying things like 'if she doesn't get some milk in her in 2 hours she will go yellow'. If i didn't have support from dp and mw I KNOW I would have given in to the pressure and given formula.

By that evening baby was still not bf - just latching on and not sucking. The pressure was immense by then so i painfully wheeled baby to a room miles away where the breast pump lived as i thought that if she has to be bottle fed, it might as well be my milk. Nobody supported me in this decision or offered any help. I sat in that room for 3 hours until i got 15ml out. In that time I was chastised and patronised for my efforts by all staff who checked on me - 'you still here? Why are you bothering you wont get enough out to feed her, give her some SMA and go back to bed' was all I heard. Thank goodness that she necked the milk, got a taste for it and started feeding for herself!!

Even after this I was getting pressure at night to top up as she had lost some weight and was feeding constantly which they said meant there was no milk there. I was even told that bf was obviously never going to work for us as i had left it too late and besides, my nipples weren't really good enough

7 months later I still resent the staff of that hospital and feel very bitter. BF did work for us and still is, but i have terrible memories of the first few days of LO's life because of this experience.

jorange - tell them your story. Write and complain. If it was a baby friendly hospital there is a special form on the BF site you can use, The BF people then follow up.

You might be able to prevent these horrible things happening to someone else.

Finsbury,how wonderful that your comm. midwife said she wouldn't leave until she had seen the baby feed. A true professional eh?

Jorange, please tell your story to relevant authorities as Tiktok says.