Friend in hosp with DVT, baby is 2weeks (ish), she has been told she must stop bf, are the docs right?

[JustBeBuffy]

OK so i don't know what meds she's on & i don't want to pester her but am sad if she's being given false info.

She says she's spoken to 3 doctors, all of whom have said she must stop bf as the baby could have an internal bleed as he's so small.

She has to be on the meds for 6months.

Her DVT was misdiagnosed as a trapped nerve first apparently , she's been in hosp since Fri so baby has been on a bottle since then anyway.

Having done a quick google i found this that implies she should be ok to carry on?

I don't know how much of a fight she's prepared to put up tbh, but just feeling & for her.

(this is dc2 for her, she bf her first for most of a year as far as i remember - we met at bf group)

frankly i am not sure why you linked to a thread for me earlier. it has disappeared anyway. what was it?

mosschops i stand by what i said, my point was, it is very unfair for medics to expect women to make informed decisions about their care when they are told things in a dogmatic and frightening fashion

Also - as it is the weekend the 3 doctors may be fairly junior and may not be up to speed with all the latest info.

Nothing to worry about Lulu. Just a silly tongue and cheek thread suggesting you were a troll who was calculating enough to make up a twin sister, plan her pregnancy and then labour and then - surprise surprise, as people secretly suspected all along, - you announce the birth.

It wasn't malicious, but had to be pulled when it strayed into real troll teritory.

Milamae - I think the reason that some of us feel quite strongly about this, is that we were originally told the same as JustBe's friend and it turned out to be absolutely incorrect information - based largely on an unwillingness amongst doctors, pharmacists etc to distinguish between drugs which are not safe in pregnancy, and the much smaller list of drugs which are not safe whilst breastfeeding.

ooooooh, right ! ok, thanks! got a bit worried when i saw it had been deleted

JustBe, Another vote that you are doing the right thing by your friend. You are ensuring she has a choice in how she feeds her baby. Your friend now has the information she needs, if she chooses to talk to the doctors about her meds.

Mosschops, As a mother who was in a very similar situation (with an 4 month old baby)to OP's friend, I damm well wished I had someone as supportive and helpful as JustBe is being. As it was it was a miracle I left hospital still breastfeeding as I had to really press the lovely but clueless doctors who knew virtually nothing about breastfeeding and drugs, that BFN drugline number was fantastic for us.

Why shouldn't people question their doctors ? They are only human after all and
breastfeeding friendly meds is not something most doctors know much about.

That's understandable Bramshott but none of know all the ins and outs of this case.

Frankly 'it would appear in this case there is no risk of internal bleeding" errr when was that established then You've examined and read the notes of said patient?

Exposing newborns to any drug should not be taken lightly,new research can always expose new risks. What maybe fine now may not be later. Newborns are particularly small and vulnerable.

I was told Chlomid was fine when I took it,research now shows there are risks to taking it longer than 6 months.

Milamae, did you read tiktok's post at 12:21?

Nope, - my suggestion is simply that the OP's friends be able to choose her risks.

Using you very same argument, how do we know there aren't about to be risks exposed with feeding your small vulnerable baby formula? - oh wait, there already are!

It is precisely because these things are not so straightforward that people should have the right to make informed choices.

Yes I did Virginia and A call centre and the internet are not the places to make your 1st port of call when making such an important choice. Doctors do a mighty fine job most of the time-they've saved my life, my daughters and my son's. Each time they administered things and procedures I didn't like I didn't say '"oh wait a minute I'll just check on Mumsnet that that's the best thing for you to do". Sometimes doctors give advice for a reason yes it's important to be informed but Sunday afternoon with no actual expert to hand the best person to rely on is your doctor.

Frankly you seem to be pretty hung up on the risks of formula. Unlike bf whilst taking the drugs mentioned here doctor's don't generally forbid the use of formula.

We all know bf is preferable but f is pretty good substitute. Millions of babies drink it without death as a result,very few babies thankfully have to bf whilst the mother is taking the drugs mentioned previously so the risks from f are minimal in comparison.

Also the content of a tin of f is pretty innocuous compared to a syringe full of anti-coagulant. I know which I'd rather consume given a choice.

Until MY doctors WRONGLY told me to stop breastfeeding, I presumed they were always right too. Funny that they then went on to "lose" my notes too.

Milamae, formula is a good substitute, when the real thing is not available.. Doctors are far too quick to encourage the use of formula, becasue of their own agenda and mostly related to overwork.

People have to realise that medicine is not so black and white. There is a large gray area. What is safe for one patient may be dangerous for another. What works for one patient may not work for another. Two doctors can look at the same patient and come up with a different diagnosis..... and both be right or both can be wrong.

One patient may benefit from being tube fed after a stroke, another might die as a result, quicker than he would die of starvation. A bolus of IV fluids might save one dehydrated patient but will certainly kill another, even if he was dehydrated.

One patient may be safe to breastfeed on warfarin and one might not. How stable the INR is may be a factor in this. Heparins are usually safe but warfarin is a very different thing entirely even if it is also an ani-coagulant.

Anyway, screw the internet and listen to the doctors. Their agenda mainly consists of not wanting to kill anyone.

MilaMae You have a point about trusting internet sources, but your point about the call centre is not so good. Of course doctors give advice for a reason, but that reason is not always in the best interests of the patient. It is perfectly valid therefore for said person to seek more from them than originally given is she is uncomfortable with it.

I am not btw hung up on the risks of formula, but I am hung up on assumptions that it is without risk and an implication that not breasfeeding does no harm. It is important to recognise this in any decision to stop.

Your point 'Unlike bf whilst taking the drugs mentioned here doctor's don't generally forbid the use of formula.' is both your point and mine. It is the reasons behind this that are being questioned in this thread.

Whether ff is a good substitute for bfing is again really rather dependent on your situation and the context and not at all as black and white as you make out. FWIW even the formula companies declare on their packaging that 'formula is not a subsitute for breastfeeding', and you are quite quite wrong about millions of babies drinking ff without death. Your conclusion that therefore risks from f are minimal is wrong.

And finally, - have you actually TASTED formula? LOL I'm not entirely sure which one I would consume.

justbe - i wish i had a friend like you

like many other posters i was told to stop bf several times by various HCPs

eg a haematologist who told me to stop as " it only really matters for the first six months"

a HV who told me " you'll be wanting to stop that now" when Ds was 8 months

a dentist who told me to stop as i needed treatment under sedation

a GP who told me i coudln't take antihistamines so would have to stop, even though my toddler could have been prescribed the same drug himself

another Gp who prescribed anti biotics which are incompatible with Bf when there is a good alternative

ALL of them were wrong. sadly they were not Bf experts and didn't take the time to consult those who are. fortunately i did and kept feeding him

none of them discussed the risk to my baby of being weaned early.

Thanks Kristina

& well done you

LovestheChaos: you say "People have to realise that medicine is not so black and white. There is a large gray area."

Indeed so.

How does this square with your dogmatism of earlier today when you said: "If she is on warfarin then breast feeding would be extremely dangerous. "

Please withdraw that statement. It is ridiculous to be so black and white about it.

No one is saying the OP's friend should ignore the medical advice she has had. But these days, people can have access to good quality information about meds, and they can use this in discussion with their doctors...I fail to see what is remotely controversial about this, and in fact it's what intelligent adults should do routinely, IMO.

Doctors in the main have very little knowledge about breastfeeding and make sweeping assumptions that women cannot breastfeed on certain medication which proves to be false. As someone else said earlier in the thread, it is likely that 3 junior doctors have said the same about breastfeeding without researching it at all.

Women should question on what basis they are advised to stop feeding.

It is a big deal to many women - it was to ne too when I was advised to stop feeding my seriously ill 6 month old baby who had meningitis. This was because I developed mastitis due to him being unable to feed and me not expressing whilst getting him diagnosed. GP said it didn't make any difference to his health at this age. Consultant paediatrician said continuing to breastfeed helped save his life.

Breastfeeding is important but many doctors don't see the value therefore give random, inappropriate advice to stop.

"the content of a tin of f is pretty innocuous compared to a syringe full of anti-coagulant"

Is anyone suggesting feeding the baby a syringe full of anti coagulant??

Frankly yes it tastes rank but the anti coag's I had hurt like f when injected and it bruises your skin in a v scary fashion so I'd still rather consume formula any day

Chaos, there is a large grey area for lots of things, but the fact is with regards to bf, as Kristina has pointed out, HCPs are incredibly ignorant. This seems to be tied up with a personal unease with the idea of a bf women and a belief that it is important to be able to quantify how much milk a baby is getting. While displaying all the bf is best for your baby posters it HCPs often actively and inappropriatels discourage bf. Lots of us have had this expreience.

No-one is telling the op to tell her friend to ignore the doctors. They're just saying she can get some more information from a reliable, specialist source which she can then show to the doctors to double-check their opinion.

Why is this such an awful, scary, dangerous thing?

In my experience, doctors are very flippant about telling women to discontinue breastfeeding because it makes it easier for them to prescribe drugs. Apart from all the arguments for breastfeeding, being stopped from doing it unnecessarily CAN seriously worsen PND and cause other psychological problems which do actually carry a risk so it's good to make sure it really is essential. Yes, three doctors can be wrong. They might not be, but it's good to check with a specialist source (and sadly, most doctors aren't lactation consultants).

It's worth bearing in mind that some drugs have to be injected because the body cannot absorb them any other way - they are destroyed in the gut and therefore inactivated.

Even if these drugs do get into the breastmilk (and they may not necessarily - the molecule is too large to pass into the milk) they are harmless to the baby....why? Because they reach the baby's gut and are destroyed.

This is a generalisation, but I'm posting it here to show that a mother taking medication does not need to assume that the baby is then affected by it.

It is always worth discussing options with doctors who say breastfeeding is not compatible with a medication.

Milamae: are you likening the Breastfeeding Network to a call centre? If you are then, well, you do not know of what you speak.

No I am not hung up about the risks of formula, if it was me you were writing directly to.

Of course, the OPs friend should listen to her doctor and she is well within her right to say, have you contacted the Breastfeeding Network? Have you looked at the medicine's compatibility with breastfeeding in this book?

then if the answer is 'no' then it is likely he hasn't finished his research in her case before making a recommendation.
it is all well and good to follow guidelines but guidelines is not reason to not treat every patient as an individual.