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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

Baby UNfriendly hospital - Anyone have any ideas how to fight the following?

69 replies

Marthasmama · 23/06/2009 20:49

I have been trying to establish how I am going to continue to breastfeed dd (8 months) while I am staying in hospital following a gynacological operation. I have been told I will need a 5 day stay in hospital. I was told by the consultant that there is no facility for me to have dd in hospital with me. To make matters worse, I have today found out from PALS that I will only be allowed to see dd to feed her during visiting hours which are 3-4pm and 6.30-8pm. I was told that I could not have additional visits for breastfeeding as the nurses have a responsibility for my well-being not for dd's.

I am not happy to accept this and wondered if anyone had any ideas where to go from here. DD still has loads of milk and is very clingy so it is going to be hard enough without this being taken away from us. I am probably going to call PALS back again and inform them that it is essential for my mental well-being that I am allowed to continue to breast feed my baby. I am so angry and fed up that I really feel like not having the op as my main priority at the moment is dd's well being. Do you think it would be worth contacting my local branch of NCT?

TIA

OP posts:
PacificDogwood · 25/06/2009 10:37

What really puzzles me (on top of the overall ludicrousness of the whole situation): this is gyn surgery you are having, isn't it, Marthasmum? Most gyn consultants also do some obstetric work, or certainly did some during their training. Why, oh why, would somebody in this speciality have a problem with allowing a young baby access to her mother for something as fundamental as feeding?? I just do not get it!
Idont: "confused about the hot drinks policy" hahahahahaha! How stupido, unbelievable!! How hot do you keep your breast milk ?

treedelivery · 25/06/2009 12:11

Oh my God!

You'd think you were asking to continue your work on nuclear reactors in A bay or something.

Fools. Well, they had their chance. Cheif exec office and hissy fit is now the only way.

Fools.

treedelivery · 25/06/2009 12:11

Oh my God!

You'd think you were asking to continue your work on nuclear reactors in A bay or something.

Fools. Well, they had their chance. Chief exec office and hissy fit is now the only way.

Fools.

Marthasmama · 25/06/2009 12:14

Hello!!! I had a phone call back it has been agreed that I can have open visiting hours in order to feed dd. Hurrah!!!!!

Thank you for all you help, I have no doubt that you carried me along with your support! I will let you know what reality was like and whether I had to continue fighting or whether it actually worked!

Pacific - The consultant was my gyn consultant when I was pg with ds!

OP posts:
treedelivery · 25/06/2009 12:14

Notice cunning correction of Cheif there, but sadly after I hit enter?

Remeber to always take the line that you are looking for discussion to make this possible - not looking for a changing table, cot, glider chair and a cuppa [though would be nice]. Then yo have the high ground that they have been unwilling even to discuss their reasond for this.

The sister of the gynae ward is another who could help. And may just say yes, I would if it was my ward.

tiktok · 25/06/2009 12:22

Yay yay and thrice yay!!

That's brilliant news.

Tip: write and say 'thank you' afterwards, not in the spirit of gratitude (I mean, you were asking for something 100 per cent reasonable) but in order to set a precedent for other mothers. You might even suggest they include the words "open visiting is extended to the infants and toddlers of inpatient mothers" or something similar in their patient leaflet. I don't think babies and small children stop needing their mums just 'cos they are not breastfeeding. They might want to ensure some other adult is responsible for the child and is present, in case the mother is confined to bed or is too ill to give 100 per cent care, of course.

treedelivery · 25/06/2009 12:25

HUrrah!!!!! Who rang you?

Am delighted you haven't to go through the mill.

wuglet · 25/06/2009 12:34

Woo hoo!
More power to your norks!

Hope the op goes well too

pramspotter · 25/06/2009 12:45

As an RN I would never stop a baby from coming in to be fed by it's mother. I can't think of one nurse on my general medical ward who would take visiting hours that seriously.

If you were my patient, I would try and get you into a sideward (a battle in itself because there are more cdiff and mrsa patients than sidewards at any given time).

Once in the sideward I would let your partner (or whomever) come and go with the baby as he/she pleases. I would be concerned about having the baby alone in the room with you as you would be recovering and not able to protect it from some of the other patients. I would also be concerned about infection.

Ideally it would be best for bub just to be able to stay in your room. But many hospital wards, even gynae wards, get medical patients who are confused, disorientated aggressive, and wander into other patients rooms. They cannot be reasoned with or re-orientated and you can't always just sedate them. Patients like this outnumber the nursing staff. They make the wards a very scary place and management will not throw the nursing staff a bone in the form of extra help and resources. They just won't. And they get away with it.

I had a patient like this make a beeline into a sideroom. Patient grabbed a table and threw it at the window. Scared the hell out of the poor elderly woman in the room. Shortly after this the same patient grabbed a bottle off of one patients side table and then sprayed it in the face of another patient. And guess what: the psyches refused to come in and see him, the medics refused to do anything because they felt that it was a psyche problem, and hospital management refused to send the nurses any help. Yes, they can do that. This kind of situation is a regular occurance.

This left only 2 small female nurses to deal with this patient as well as 30 others. Patients like this are more common than you think. And this is what makes the blood of the nursing staff run cold when people talk about having infants on the ward. It isn't due to laziness, indifference, or ignorance about breastfeeding on the part of the nursing staff. We know that we have more unpredictable and possibly aggressive patients than we can control. We also know that if anything happens to that infant we would be 100% liable.

This kind of thing is much more common on the medical wards where patients are sicker and have mulitple problems. But often gynae wards do take overflow medical patients. And they may have to take alcohol detoxers, people with psyche problems, and people with dementia. Sometimes people are just confused because of a medical problem and when that clears up so does their disorientation and aggressive behaviour.

But they really should allow visiting hours to be altered for you so that you can feed that baby. As long as your partner etc is there it shouldn't be a problem.

Ideally the managers would provide the nurses with an extra set of hands to keep an eye on things when an infant is on there ward. Guess what. They won't. And they ward nurse will be liable if anything happens.

pramspotter · 25/06/2009 12:47

Ah just saw your last post. Glad they are being good about the visiting hours.

dawntigga · 25/06/2009 14:08

Yay you - really pleased you got a positive outcome!

dxx

greensnail · 25/06/2009 14:30

Really pleased for you. Good luck for the op, and i hope the open visiting works for you and dd.

undomesticatedgoddess · 25/06/2009 15:15

Excellent news Marthasmama. Good luck with your op.

Was thinking about you last night. Have you had a pre-op assessment or are you going in the night before? Might be worth finding out which anaesthetist will be doing your op so you can let them know you are BFing. They may tweak your anaesthetic/post op pain relief to make it as safe as possible for baby.

You could always get the pharmacist for the ward to look at your meds too as a bit of fine tuning around feeds can make all the difference. You can ask the nurse looking after you to contact the pharmacist to come and see you if they don't do routine rounds. Spot what I do for a living! I've helped many a mum continue breast feeding when they'd been advised to pump 'n' dump.

Good for you sticking up for yourself. let us know how you get on.

tiktok · 25/06/2009 15:36

Good post, pramspotter. I do think that all the justifiable concerns you express are met by staff insisting that another adult is always with the baby - another adult apart from mum, that is. The baby is always going to be brought by the other adult (baby can hardly hop on a bus and get herself there, whatever the flexibility on visiting hours)...other adult has to stay to take the baby home again.

Simples.

Marthasmama · 25/06/2009 15:47

Thank you for your post Pramspotter. Very interesting to hear the possible reasons behind the reluctance to allow dd on the ward. DH will be with her at all times even when she is with me feeding as I suspect I will need assistance. I will also show him your post which will help him to understand why he needs to stay with us!

undomesticatedgoddess - My lovely friend (and MNer) is a pharmacist and I have asked her if she knows of anything I would need to avoid. I am having my pre-op assessment next week so will raise the issue again at that point too.

OP posts:
undomesticatedgoddess · 25/06/2009 16:49

Brill

Glad you're on the ball.

Sometimes you can get away without avoiding things by just altering the timings. If I was you I'd keep an eye on your drug chart too. Additions to it may not always be discussed with you. And get them to write in big letters on the drug chart itself that you are breast feeding.

PacificDogwood · 25/06/2009 18:48

Oh, I am so glad they relented were sensible in the end!! Good for you for being assertive.
And at your consultant! Is he ancient or has he lived under a rock in the last 10 years?!!
Hope you OP goes well and you recover quickly.

PuzzleRocks · 27/06/2009 13:47

Oh Marthasmama, that's great news. You must be so relieved.

CheekyGirl · 27/06/2009 21:31

Hi! I am so glad you seem to have got things sorted. I had my gall bladder removed when ds was 7mths and fully breastfed. I happened to mention in my pre-op cosultation that I was breastfeeding and when I came in on the day, I found I had been automatically placed in an empty bay and my dh was given a ward swipe card so he could come and go with ds as he wanted. I was even told ds could stay with me overnight as long as dh was happy to stay too, to take full responsibility of ds. I was lucky, I ended up not needing to stay in overnight!

I assumed this was basic good practice!! It seems not!!

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