i was told 3 times by paed. nurse in MRI children's A&E that there was no place for me to breastfeed

[sherazade]

Yesterday when took dd1 to a&e i asked if there was a baby room or feeding room where i could breastfeed my distraught 10 month old. was told 'no'. Is there any baby room? 'no'. Is there just a room with a chair 'No'. this is a childrens outpatient dept. and there is NO feeding room? 'no'. what kind of hospital is this? 'There's a nappy room but its taken'. went to the said nappy room which was just a disgusting toilet with a changing table and it was actually empty. Makes me suspect the nurse was not happy about me bfeeding full stop. Would have been happy to feed dd2 anywhere really but didn't fancy the hugely overcrowded , tinsy winsy waiting room with coughing/puking/ staring patients.
so how do I go about launching a lengthy complaint? whole thing is a bit hypocritical considering there were those silly ' breastfeeding gives my baby the best start' posters stuck on the walls.
I did, however, half an hour later, shout at another nurse a bit hysterically that I needed to feed my baby and that i was told 3 times by the previous nurse that there was no room with a chair, to which she answered 'of course there's a room with a comfy seat for you' and directed me to one!

Highest priority? In the same way that resusitation, emergency surgery are given high priority?

I am a big advocate of BF and agree has lasting benefits but it is not, and imo should not be, of the highest priority especially in a busy A+E dept.

If there was a nice room with a comfy chair and it was already taken what would the op have done then? Shouted I guess.

nurses attitide sucks, i will agree to that.

but sadly there often isnt a place available in a+e away from noises and other people.

Surely there are other things in an a&e dept that might be of a higher priority than finding a special room for a bfing mother who already has everything she needs. The world doesn't stop because someone wants their own space (in an a&e dept? when it's busy?) Seems a bit self focussed and one-track thinking to me.

You're being a bit thick there Layla.

I'm with you Sherezade and I'm sorry this thread is turning into a dig at you, when you have already had a horrible experience in a & e.

I work for the NHS and usually breastfeed anywhere. But there are times and places when I don't feel comfortable, like in Subway yesterday with groups of teenage boys hanging around. We are all human and we don't all want to be ambassadors for the religion that is breastfeeding all the time.

Ok I am being thick now, but why was I being thick previously? Unless your statement was ironic of course?

Where did it come in that it's being an ambassador for the breastfeeding religion? Good grief. It's about a hungry baby and a mother with the means to feed it. Just get on with it and stop making a big deal about it. Feed your baby. You don't need anyone else. Sherazade's baby is 10m old so I would expect both of them are not inexperienced at feeding.

For christ's sake, you can breastfeed anywhere. Asking for a room in an A&E dept is a rather precious thing to do and completely unnecessary.

Hang on a minute.

The OP wanted a place to bf her baby because her BABY won't bf in a noisy place, not because she's worried about public bf.

There was one available, which the first nurse wouldn't direct her to, for whatever reason.

So no, OP, you're not unreasonable to expect the first nurse to be more polite to you, you're not unreasonable to have been cross that there had been a room all along and all the trumped up "yeah, but what if a dead bird had just fallen out of a tree onto the first nurse and upset her guff on this thread is just that - guff.

Come on, ladies - the OP's baby's just been to A&E and needed a quiet place to breastfeed while she was there.

I'm getting a bit cross with this thread, namely the 'let's beat up Sherazade and call her precious, demanding etc..' stuff

Of course BF women have needs, as do BF babies... we know that BF is not simply a question of 'oh stick her on and get on with it' (which is what some posters are implying) because of the legions of women who mail this list asking for help. It is not rocketscience to appreciate that thousands of BF women/babies sometimes need a quiet place to do it.

... and public places, especially those provided for by public money and where the public have to wait for long periods of time (hospitals, railway stations, airports, council offices etc) should - surely - have a policy about making BF women comfortable.

No-one doubts that the nurse in question was stressed and overworked and maybe struggling with difficult NHS conditions and possibly current crises. But to whack Sherezade and others with guilt ('dead child' etc) isn't helping anyone.

Of course BF is not the main priority in such places. But neither is food, toileting, parking, foods, baby changing or any of the other things that ordinary humans need while waiting in uncomfortable circs.

Give the woman a break FGS...

I don't think anyone is suggesting that Sherazade has a right to be peeved and upset about this (well, I certainly wasn't!) In her place I would have been peeved and upset too.

What some people were questioning was whether the fact that there was no room available was worthy of an official complaint.

I agree that the first nurse could/should have been more sympathetic. I agree that feeding a 10 mo in public can be tricky. I agree that Shezarade had every right to ask whether a private room was available, and every right to receive a polite answer. I just don't agree that the fact that the answer was "no" is worth an official letter of complaint.

Shezerade, I hope your DD is better and I am sorry that you had such a horrible time in A&E.

Sorry, should have read:

"I don't think anyone is suggesting that Sherazade hasn't got a right"

TYV, the point is that there WAS a room available though. The first nurse just didn't bother mentioning it.

But HM we don't know that for sure - it might not have been clean or ready, it might have been needed soon or the nurse might have thought it could be needed, or maybe she just didn't know it was there. If someone asked me at work whether there was a boardroom free that second I certainly couldn't give an accurate answer off the top of my head.

I dunno, I agree it wasn't an ideal situation and it wasn't handled superbly, but I guess it just depends what you think an official complaint to the NHS is for. Personally, I wouldn't use it for this - I'm not saying Shezerade shouldn't - I just wouldn't myself.

(As an aside, did the second nurse really say that the first nurse had LIED? I find it really strange and unprofessional that one colleague would accuse another colleague like that without knowing the circumstances.)

I had to take my little boy (now 12 days old) to hospital recently. We were in the examination room, waiting for the paediatrician to come to examine him, when he needed to feed. I just fed him there and then. I would have probably done the same had he neded to feed in the public waiting room, as it didn't cross my mind not to.
I've since fed him in 2 public car parks. If anyone made a disapproving comment I think I'd just tell them to bog off.

I quite regularly feed my baby whilst walking round asda, or any other supermarket, or walking round anywhere, if he needs feeding. It doesn't matter. I can do it whilst pushing two other kids in a trolley.
I remember once being asked if I needed a 'quiet room' to feed, this was yonks ago before M&Baby changing rooms and the like. I declined. I couldn't for the life of me work out why I needed to go somewhere else to feed.

It's just not necessary.

The nurse was offhand but maybe she was pissed off?

She wanted a room to feed because her baby gets distracted in public and doesn't feed

I can't speak for Sherezade or anyone else, but I'd have been asking for a quiet room because ds has never got past the distractible stage and will not feed if he's even slightly stimulated - say by passers-by, phones ringing, etc. - and if he was, as the OP said, 'distraught', then we'd need a long time to quieten him down before he'd feed even in a private room.

If it was up to ME, I'd feed anywhere and everywhere , but it's not entirely my decision.

but I don't think something needs to be a MASSIVE deal for a complaint to be a valid thing. It is the only real way of giving (negative) feedback in the NHS, which requires someone to respond.

The complaints system in most NHS services is multi-leveled, so it doesn't have to be a BIG THING with lots of managers etc involved. The first tier usually involves the complained-about-person being asked to explain and respond. If that is not satisfactory to the complainer it goes up to the complained-abouts manager, and so on, as necessary. Mostly complaints don't need to go beyond the first 2 levels, IME.

I am always encouraging patients to complain - just because we work in the NHS doesn't mean we always do the right thing. In fact it can be helpful for staff .. if you work in a ridiculously overstretched department and struggle to cope, complaints from patients are always more effective at making things change than complaints from staff...

PHD I too have a very easily distracted baby whilst feeding. However, it would never occur to me to take him somewhere quiet, that's not practical and we both have to learn to deal with his distractibility!

Spink, that makes sense about patient complaints.

I think the only 'complaint' the op has is that the nurse wasn't the politest she could have been.
Still, I hardly think it's worth complaining about. There are other things to be getting on with surely?

Big congratulations to all those posters who feed anytime, anywhere, any circumstances but I don't see the relevance to the OP. She mentioned herself that she used to be able to feed her baby like this.

I'm all for normalizing breastfeeding, but I'm equally all for the right to request a quiet corner to feed in without being spoken to rudely or judged.

I'm with you Beachcomber. Nicely put

MrsS, the OP was with the baby in A&E. The baby was distraught. You might have wanted a quiet corner to bfeed in those circumstances.

Yes, request I quiet corner by all means but don't get hacked of if there isn't one. I think the issue here is the nurse's rudeness. I think the op is also pissed off that there initially seemed to be nowhere quiet. I agree on the first point but not on the second.