Help re breast feeding

[Flower3554]

Can anyone give me any advice please. I have been asked to care for an as yet unborn baby who will be coming into local authority care when he/she is discharged from hospital. As a foster carer for many years this is a new one on me: Birth mum has requested that until decisions are made as to the future of her child she be allowed to breast feed. I am puzzled as to how this can work. Can she express milk for a full day the day before and what happens the first day until she has expressed/ Sorry if this seems garbled but my own children are well grown and it over 20 years since I breast fed them.

In the past I have seen a mum stay in hospital breastfeeding until a decision was made as to whether the baby was going home with her. In this case that did happen.

If it is cut and dried that the baby will not be going anywhere with the mum then I cannot see how the baby will be able to be exclusively breastfed. The mum could express milk on a regular basis and milk could then be sent for baby.

It is a very difficult situation. The circumstances must be pretty bad when it is thought the baby will be taken directly into care.

You might want to put this in the breastfeeding/bottle feeding section where the experts are more likely to see it.

From my less-than-expert perspective, she can express milk for a full day the day before (there is a good chance that if the situation persists then her supply will tail off because pumping isn't as effective as nursing for building and maintaining supply, but it may work out). She'll need to express a lot, though -- probably every two hours for the first weeks.

Is that what's envisaged (i.e. exclusively pumping), or is there a plan for her to make daytime breastfeeding visits to the baby?

How long is the baby likely to be in hospital? If it's several days then she could start expressing in between feeds while she's in for those several days and build something up, although the first few days will be colostrum so it will depend on the timing.

Another thing to look into (via social services or the hospital) is the availability of a milk bank of donated breastmilk and whether that would be available in this case to tide the baby through the first day and to supplement whatever she's managing to express.

Although mears is an expert and saw it here, so what do I know...

This baby will in all likelyhood not be returning home with birth mum but wouldn't social services be acting "not in the best interests of the child" to refuse to allow Mum to breastfeed?

Agree portandlemonaid this is perhaps better in the breastfeeding section.

I think that the best interests of the child are not based on how it is fed TBH, but how it will be cared for overall. No point being breastfed and at risk of abuse.

It is a difficult dilemma.

Do you want to move this to breast/bottle feeding section Flower3554?

Yes please but TBH I have no idea how to do that. Can you help?

go here

Click on link

To start a post in that section, click on 'by topic' at the top of this page.

Scroll down to 'feed the world section' which is 7 sections down.

Click 'create conversation' as you did in this thread.

Moved it over for you though.