Bham women's hosp will not provide milk or sterile environment for new mums...

[satsumaish]

Cannot believe this, but mw warned me today that due to breast is best policy the hopsital will not provide first milk, or bottles or an area to sterilise bottles after July 1st.

I cannot bf due to medical reasons, but even if I could, I would like to feel that there was milk available for my baby after god knows how long being in labour. I reckon this is totally wrong and punishes new mums who can't or don't want to bf.

I wanted to breast feed when I had DD2, I was all geared up for it and then she was born - a huge whopper of a baby and she wasn't at all interested in the breast.
I was forced into giving her a bottle so we could go home, at the time I was too exhausted to argue but later I did complain but it got me nowhere.

I wish I had left the hospital and got la leche league instead and breastfed for months.

Dd was jaundiced and hospital pretty much forced me to ff her. If they hadn't had formula available to push at me maybe I'd have had more chance to continue bfing.

I spent nearly a week in hospital with dd drinking their supplied formula, they never suggested I should buy my own and let me have couple of bottles to take home.

So I'm glad that I didn't have the extra stress of getting hold of formula from the ward but I wouldn't have needed it in the first place if they'd followed the guidelines and supported me properly.

I'm breastfeeding my second child now, see my hospital als very breastfeeding friendly, but they do provide formula for non breastfeeders. I find the idea outrageous that in the name of policy an NHS trust would refuse to provide food to infant patients.
They're not asking anyone else to bring their own food in, do they?

I know - the pressure to get feeding them is a bit full on, and supplementing them with formula is often necessary in the first day or so.

I have just met more than a few people who have for some reason assumed that I would not be able to breastfeed because I'm diabetic - including a community midwife - so it was just that I didn't want references to diabetes and FF to be misunderstood.

Yes to steal I am ashamed to say littleducks, they were disposable bottles and teats, not re-useable though. (not that that makes it any better)

I had real trouble getting my DS to feed naturally when I was in recently and because he was jaundiced it was decided it was really important to get more fluid into him so the MW's helped me express half a feed and give him half a Formula feed (which the hospital supplied quite happily, together with the bottles and teats after showing me where to sterilise, etc.). Thankfully we are almost getting the hang of BF now but I feel my hospital (Colchester General) were absolutely great and I am very appreciative of all the help and support they gave me.

hmmm guess im a bad mummy then..i never even attempted to BF and was never going to, I genuinely didnt think about packing the pre made bottles. I only made one class before my DS was born so we didnt cover if I needed bottles or not.
Needless to say, they automatically gave my DH a bottle in theatre to feed my DS whilst I was stitched up, didnt ask if I was BF or not, then maybe I had already told them I wasnt, tehy didnt question it!
They never once encouraged me or asked if I would like to try just the once, it was just accepted.
When I needed a new bottle they brought one over and never said I had to go get any and again on discharge I had spares sent home with me.
I dont think there is a right or wrong answer to why they do or dont provide said bottles. There will always be those that agree or disagree - like everything its quite emotive deciding to BF or not.
x

Tell me if I'm looking at the wrong hospital, but I just found this quote;

"As midwives, we actively promote and support breastfeeding. However, if you choose to bottle feed your baby we will support you in this choice too. Bottle milk is available for your baby whilst in hospital."

It's on this page.

IME hospitals provide those little single feed bottles and disposable one-use teats, so I can see why they wouldn't provide you with reusable bottles or formula powder. If you are planning to FF you should bring those things into hospital yourself. However, a sterilising area is essential, both for bottle feeding AND breast feeding in hospital - when a BFing mother is separated from her baby and is advised to express, a sterilising area is necessary. Even if a FFing mother brings her own formula, bottles and cold water sterilising kit in with her, she will still need somewhere to wash the bottles and keep her kit - there is usually not enough room to keep it by the bed, and it's probably not desirable to keep a bucket of Milton there anyway!

Many women intend to BF and find themselves needing to FF, either for the duration their child drinks milk or until they get their BFing established. It isn't a very child- or woman-friendly policy to not even consider the requirement to feed a baby that it's mother was intending to BF and then couldn't. Nor is it good policy to deny planned FFers and expressers the space and facilities to ensure their babies' ongoing good health.

While it is an easy thing to get irate about, I can't see it happening, nor does their website suggest it.

Montmartre, there are some medications that you should avoid breastfeeding on. I have issues with blood clotting and am on Heparin and will be after the birth, it is advisable not to BF while on it. I wonder if they worry about thrush with GD? I know too much sugar can result in thrush in babies, not sure about that though.

Too much sugar can result in thrush in babies and adults, but excess sugar in the blood (as in the case of diabetics) doesn't affect milk supply, as far as I know (and I did research it quite a lot, as a diabetic breastfeeding mum!). It was certainly never mentioned to me by HCPs in 12 months of breastfeeding.

Ok kicking, I really have no idea about it really I was just taking a wild guess. Thanks for clearing that up. :)

Sorry - the breastfeeding and diabetes thing is a pet cause of mine! Where I live, breastfeeding is unusual and T1 diabetes is about 0.3% of the population and half of those are men, so you can imagine how much information was around for me...

Lots of my own research and I am a mine of information, should anyone be interested

IME of expressing on a ward (due to preterm delivery) there is no sterilsing area.

The pump kit is supplied sterile after going thru an industrial autoclave. One pump kit comes in its own little sterile bag. You use it, rinse it and put it to be washed, collected and sterilized elsewhere.

Next time you get a new kit.

Having said that on the neonatal ward cold water sterling equipment is supplied for you to sterilise your personal (loaned) pump attachments.

Sorry my main.point there is that a sterilising area is not necessarily needed for hospital provided expressing kit because it may be done 'behind closed doors'

i was GD and encouraged to BF (which i was going to anyway) even to point of being shown how to hand express colostrum into a medicine syringe for baba.
If BFing mothers bring in their own milk, why should FFing mothers get it given gratis?

whitechocolatebuttons I think you are missing the point - this is not another BF-FF debate, it is a discussion about the provision of sterilising facilities and formula in a women and babies hospital. Sterilising facilities can be required by both BFers and FFers - it does not matter how you feed your baby, but in a hospital where babies are born there should be facilities to sterilise your bottles or breast pump if you need it.

As for this statement;

"If BFing mothers bring in their own milk, why should FFing mothers get it given gratis?"

This is such an ignorant statement I almost can't be bothered to explain the answer to it, but I will. I was and am a BFing mother. With Baby No1 I intended to BF and I took my own milk into hospital with me. But a few days in HDU with a baby in SCBU meant my baby was given some formula until I was able to start expressing. Someone who is not conscious cannot express, and a newborn baby can't just hang around waiting. Many women never intend to FF and find it an unpleasant surprise that they end up FF. Why should their first few days with their baby be made harder than it already may be? I fully support milk being made available in hospitals. For the most part it is not lazy FFers using it. FFers-by-choice have usually thought long and hard about their choice and take their chosen brand with them.

I agree with amberleaf. Hospitals feed all their other patients including those with special dietary requirements through choice, e.g. vegetarians and those for who follow certain religious dietary codes, e.g. halal or kosher. It seems incongruous to me to then refuse to feed newborn babies whose mothers choose to formula feed. Just another way to make life more difficult for women at a vulnerable time in their lives.

The way to improve breastfeeding rates is not to make women who choose to formula feed fell like pariahs.

What fayrazzled said. Until the baby is dischatged, the hospital has an obligation to feed them. Parents could buy formula, but the baby can't can they.

And what Gwendoline said to coccyx!

I BF, by the way - like backinthebox said this is not a BF vs FF issue. Though my baby did have formula while I was unconscious and unable to express enough due to her prematurity. But hey, of couse, I had months to pack my hospital bag, I should have anticipated having a placental abruption and not turned up almost dead with only the clothes I was wearing...

www.thisishullandeastriding.co.uk/news/HOSPITALS-STOP-SUPPLY-BABY-MILK/article-3613930-detail/article.html

I think there is a very real issue of how having formula freely available to all mums, on request impacts on unnecessary formula supplementation for breastfeeding mums.

Our local hospital used to hand out formula to anyone who asked. At one point a couple of years ago 50% of breastfed babies were having formula top ups within 12 hours of birth.

Since they've stopped handing it out the rates of exclusive breastfeeding on discharge from hospital have gone up a lot.

Spud - is unnecessary supplementation not more to do with the attitude and knowledge of the midwives and not the availability of formula? So when a BF mother says she thinks she needs a top up perhaps the answer is to help her with her decision to BF, not to penalise people who don't want to. As it happens, I imagine my baby would have been "allowed" formula as a medical emergency under this new regime (in fact she was given it without my knowledge or consent before I woke up), but I don't see why that should matter, unless it's just judgyness.

The arguement for over-feeding is interesting, the bottles that were provided to me had far too much in......about 3oz, we wasted no end....... but, how do you know how much a BF baby is getting?

I agree Peppapig - tis the fault of the midwives mainly. They used to have one midwife who insisted on locking the bottles up and making staff sign for them. That worked quite well but then she left and the staff went back to handing formula out willy-nilly. Getting rid of the bottles achieved overnight almost what senior staff had been trying and failing to do for years - cut down casual supplementation.

Should have said my own opinion on this is if not supplying formula in hospital is proven to improve continuing breastfeeding rates and save the NHS significant amounts of money then I think it's something that should continue. But the hospital should provide facilities for making up feeds and midwives should offer kind support to ff mums.

Worm - You don't know how much they're getting in ounces, but you know if they're getting enough if they do 6-8 wet nappies per day, poo, etc

Yes, the glass pre-sterilised bottles are HUGE! We used some to tube feed as I couldn't express enough at first and most of it went down the drain.