Only get given dinner in hospital if you breastfeed?!

[Babybabyy]

I’m currently in hospital with my one month old due to a respiratory issue and we’re having to stay in for a few days. The staff on the ward have been lovely, can’t do enough for us and I have a (sort of) bed in her room. They made me breakfast this morning and my husband brought me in lunch. At dinner a nurse brought me a menu and held it out to me before double checking I definitely was breastfeeding. I said yes, mainly expressing now, and she said that was good because you only get offered the dinner menu if you’re breastfeeding.

As much as I can understand the concept of feeding mums who obviously need to eat well in order to produce milk, why are mums who are formula feeding (for whatever reason) not worthy of their dinner? I was surprised they could actually even say that, especially when some people will have struggled with breastfeeding 🤔 Just a bit taken aback by it! Is this standard practice in hospitals if you’re in with your baby?

It's disgusting

The parent is there looking after the baby and very likely cannot leave at all to get food.

WTF are we saying these mothers can just starve because their kids aren't physically dependent on their milk?!

I tell you if dads were in there and not allowed to leave their babies side they would get dinner. And no they wouldn't be breast feeding.

I only had about 7 pound on me. But i would have paid for some fruit and a hot drink if i could. But i understand thats not workable.

I couldn’t breastfeed, not for want of trying, baby failed to put on weight and was really poorly and I basically didn’t eat for days because I didn’t have a partner and couldn’t leave the baby unattended and wasn’t allowed to take him out of the ward. Occasionally I’d get a toast from a nurse but I was in the middle of postnatal blues, baby was really unwell, I felt like a complete failure and 13 years on thinking back still makes me cry. It was brutal

Genuinely the bar is so low, all those saying it is fair enough-

For a parent in hospital with their child to go and get food they would literally have to leave the child, even a baby, unsupervised on the ward. They can't do that so they starve.

As long as parents are required to care for their kids 24/7 on the ward they obviously wed feeding

I was in when my newborn was readmitted and wasn't given any food and the reason we were in was failed breast feeding! It was very awkward trying to source food and not wanting to leave your few days old baby. The one that really got me later though was the children's centre - ours used to host a mummy meet up type event on a weds morning. The breast feeders got free tea and toast but if you weren't you got nothing!

The neonatal ward my DC was on fed both parents.

My eldest was an in patient and my baby was 5 days old and exclusively breast fed, me and baby had to stay with eldest, eldest was freaking out about being connected to the canula /drip and despite me almost begging, nobody brought me anything for 36 hours that I was by eldest bedside. Soooooo thirsty.

Missing the point here but the food in our hospital is amazing! 🤣

wrong thread

It's a stupid policy. If parents are expected to remain with their children at all times, they should be fed and provided with supervision for toilet breaks at regular intervals.

When my dd was in hospital for 2 weeks as a baby bf mothers also got hospital beds wheeled in for them over night while we got camp beds. I can understand it but 2 weeks of a camp bed was hell. Also hated the night staff wakening us up every morning at 6am to put all beds away before day staff came on. When you've spent half the night up with a sick newborn and staff being loud and finally start to get some rest you're being poked at to get up. By the end of the stay I was ready for hospital myself. Oh and the bf mothers we're able to stay in their hospital beds and weren't cruelly woke up like the rest of us.

For everyone saying you're not the patient, it was the same when I had my c section, I couldn't breastfeed and wasn't provided meals 🤷‍♀️ I was also the patient, it was awful, everything is geared to force you to breastfeed.

You can order a takeaway meal to be delivered to hospitals.

We were all allowed breakfast. It was wheeled in on a trolley. Thankfully.

Someone had raised money for a coffee machine too after having had a stay with their baby. It was out in the corridor which was handy.

It must be so expensive for some mums to fund themselves like that though. It's inevitable that there will be some who simply cannot afford to eat in the café or buy in food.

But where is the money coming from? Unless the Mum pays I suppose.

Standard .
I spent 8 months in hospital with my son . No food provided.
I used to make a mad dash when they were asleep to the shop to stick up
I survived on flapjacks, bananas and crisps

It's not about the mother, it's the baby. The baby is in hospital, the baby is the patient.

As the parent, you stay with your baby. If you are breastfeeding, you get a meal because that food helps to feed your baby. If you are feeding with formula, you don't need the meal to produce that food (anyone else can step in and feed).

We were given a voucher for 50% off food from canteen

But the mother needs food in order to be able to effectively care for the baby, which is also sustaining the baby. And realistically, there often isn't anyone else to 'step in'. Making mothers go without food or allowing them to become seriously dehydrated is counterproductive, as well as not the hallmark of a civilised society.

I wouldn’t expect an adult patient’s visitor to be provided food. But, this a newborn baby. It’s drilled into us how important skin to skin and contact is with a newborn. A lot of people don’t have support from a partner or family - just look at the threads on here! Surely giving some food to the mother whilst they are feeding the child makes sense (breast or bottle - god would they give you just half a sandwich if you combifeed?!)

I know of fathers that got food and a cup of tea when their wives were in labour!!

This happened to me. My baby was four days old and he went in. The attitude when asked if I was breastfeeding was awful. I replied no to the question and was told; ‘we don’t feed mothers who aren’t breastfeeding’ and walked out. Nothing else was said.

For the record we asked for sod all in the first place, she was just on her round with the trolley. The attitude and carelessness towards two knackered and emotional parents (one of which had only given birth 72 hours earlier) was awful.

On our last hospital stay we turned up and the parents tea and coffee room was shut so I had to give away all the food I'd brought in preparation because we were only allowed 1 parent with our son and the hospital was 2hrs away from home and had two other children for DH to look after so I was left on open wards with a non verbal ASD 6yr old who is cognitively 18months and will wander and walk into everyone's bay, pull his cannula out if not restrained etc.
I had no shower for the week we were there and had to beg nurses just to use the toilet, I lived on tea and some biscuits I kept.
It's disgraceful how they treat parents, it's not good enough.

I can well believe this. Disgraceful. Awful you went through that.

There's a fabulous children's charity near me that campaigns for parents on children's wards to be fed meals and they fund parents snack boxes on the wards.
Its often really hard to leave children alone on the ward and if admitted in an emergency parents may not have been able to bring food with them.
Not to mention anyone who is in the unfortunate position of having regular hospital visits will soon find the costs of parking and food mounting up as well as potentially missing work.

It's so important to look after the parents who in turn provide valuable care to their children when nursing staff are stretched to the limit.