Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Feb
1
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“…Just Feed Her When She’s Hungry.”
“I’ll save you the trip to the lactation consultant. Just feed her when she’s hungry.” -Public Health Nurse to mother concerned about her 4 month old’s lack of weight gain.
There are 19 comments to this post.
You know, I’d like to give her the benefit of the doubt and think she’s promoting feeding on cue instead of on a schedule, but there’s this little thing called presentation… 
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Mistie Reply:
February 1st, 2010 at 10:46 pm (Quote)
You know I’m inclined to agree with you. However, as a public health nurse no less, she should be asking how often are you feeding her (she could already be feeding on demand), and then assessing the diet of the mother to ensure both are getting adequate nutrition.Just like a medical professional to make assumptions & give you the ol’ brush off.
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Lauren Reply:
February 2nd, 2010 at 12:25 am (Quote)
The nurse should at LEAST know to advise her to get her latch checked by someone who is knowledgeable about lactation. Ughhhh.
Maternal nutrition does not affect milk supply; it’s likely stress/bad latch is the issue here. I feel for the mother, as being brushed off will not help her at all, and hopefully she is strong enough to pursue help from an actual LC. 
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Sounds like good advice to me? I don’t know I think if we saw this on another board in another context we would be applauding it.
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Lauren Reply:
February 2nd, 2010 at 1:41 am (Quote)
It would be decent if the baby was gaining weight, but that was not the case.
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Usha Reply:
February 2nd, 2010 at 8:22 am (Quote)
See that still depends on further info. Many doctors tell women to supplement if their babies weight gain doesn’t keep up with that of formula fed babies. Was mom worrying about small weight gain in a healthy baby that was wetting and hitting milestones. That is something we see all the time. Sometimes babies don’t gain weight and it’s ok. I don’t see this as a brush off I see it as good advice – don’t worry so much about weight just feed the baby when she’s hungry and she’ll be ok. There is no evidence in this thread that the baby had any indicators of health problems other than the mother’s concern over weight.
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Lauren: The nurse should at LEAST know to advise her to get her latch checked by someone who is knowledgeable about lactation. Ughhhh.Maternal nutrition does not affect milk supply; it’s likely stress/bad latch is the issue here. I feel for the mother, as being brushed off will not help her at all, and hopefully she is strong enough to pursue help from an actual LC.
I’m sorry, but where did you get the info that maternal nutrition did not affect lactation? I have been nursing for 10 months now, and notice a DIRECT and IMMEDIATE decline in milk production if I do not get enough to eat. Also, I’ve read in many places, Kellymom included, that a lactating mother needs at least 2000 calories per day to keep her supply up. I just wanted to clarify that for any new moms out there struggling with supply. you have to eat and drink!
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Aron Reply:
February 2nd, 2010 at 7:38 am (Quote)
@Megan: if a mom is dehydrated it will certainly affect her supply, but a mom must be severely malnourished before her lack of food will affect her supply because the body will leach nutrients from the mother’s own tissues to supply lactation ahead of the mother’s own needs. THIS is why women are told to add extra calories and make sure they are well fed – so they don’t experience physical problems such as bone loss as a result of that leaching. Lauren is right, very likely the problem is with the baby’s latch, or perhaps a fore/hindmilk imbalance (which is also related to latch).
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Kat Reply:
February 2nd, 2010 at 8:24 am (Quote)
Actually, sometimes the mother’s physical state CAN affect milk supply. I have a friend who was not producing milk at all, due to having lost just enough blood during the birth that her body had to choose: survival or milk. She used a SNS, paid very close attention to her diet to build up her red blood cells, and ultimately did successfully breastfeed her child. Since she was older, the first medical person she talked to said it was her age and her prolactin level, so she may as well forget it… Except blood tests showed her prolactin was fine, and she was just anemic.
Also, may women who are experiencing low milk supply find it improves significantly when they are getting enough essential fatty acids. While in general milk production may not be significantly affected by nutrition for every woman, in women who are already dealing with supply issues, it quite frequently CAN be improved by nutritional means!
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jespren Reply:
February 2nd, 2010 at 4:16 pm (Quote)
I have a very slow metabolism and need myself very little food, I had to ‘force feed’ to keep my calorie intake up for nursing. If I didn’t eat around 2000 calories a day (twice what I usually eat) I immediately had a drop in milk that took days to restore. I know its rare, but for bodies that live ‘on a shoe string’ naturally (I’m not malnurished at all just my body only asks for a intake a bare minimum of calories/nutrients) even small changes in diets can kill milk supply.
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Gwen had this to say,
Feb 3, 2010 @ 4:34 am (Quote)
I wonder if the question before this comment could be Are you reading Babywise?
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Kat Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 7:03 am (Quote)
I am a book lover so I am not in favor of banning books.
I am a freedom lover, so I am not in favor of censorship.
I am a baby lover so I think all books by that author ought to be required to have health warning labels on them in fluorescent orange. Kind of like the warnings on alcoholic beverages and cigarettes: WARNING following this book strictly may cause failure to thrive, loss of milk supply while breastfeeding, attachment disorders in the infant (it is well documented that prolonged use of extinction crying-it-out CAN lead to attachment disorders in infants, I am not referring to the occasional instance where a child fusses for a few minutes after being put to bed when sleepy. I have read ezzo testimonials of parents who were COMMENDED for leaving a child to scream for an hour+ at very young ages, THAT is what I am referring to).
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jespren Reply:
February 3rd, 2010 at 6:45 pm (Quote)
My cousin (as far as I know) never read that book, but she was given advice from older relatives and what-not to let baby ‘cry it out’ so she learned to ‘put herself to sleep’. The very first night she got baby home from hospital she left her crying in her crib for 2 hours! She happily reported that her baby learned that “crying won’t get her anything so she doesn’t cry, just goes to sleep”. I stared at her in dumbfounded horror and barely managed to refrain from saying “perfect, you just taught your newborn that her only way of communicating with you, you ignore.” I felt so sorry for her baby.
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Is she saying that is all the LC would say? To feed the baby on demand? Is she dissing LCs or saying that she wasn’t feeding her baby often enough and that there wasn’t a problem outside of that? Having a baby that wasn’t gaining weight and is now but only very, very slowly, being a midwife student myself and a doula (not an LC but having helped many women breastfeed) not to mention having successfully nursed 4 babies before, I got help from two midwives, a lactation consultant, multiple visits to the pediatrician, and now on to a pediatric cardiologist to figure out what is going on (there are a few other issues as well) and a comment like that is SO not helpful.
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Hi folks.
I’m the mom who submitted this one. To put it into context, at our well baby checkups, my daughter’s dots on the chart were falling further off the arc on the graph. The public health nurse stated her concern, to which I replied that I had an appointment booked with the lactation consultant for the NEXT DAY. This was her response.
It turned out that I’d had a drop in supply (the doctor said this is common around 3-4 months postpartum but I’m not sure why), was put on domperidone, and now my daughter is back to where she should be. Also, she’s 13 months now and I am still nursing her at least twice a day.
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OMG. I heard a recent comment on the evening news that about 13 or 19 billion dollars could be saved, if women breastfeed their babies (it may have been million). In the NICU, it’s a very big deal for breast milk. It helps keep the intestines from having problems so if mom for whatever reason can’t or won’t breastfeed then the babies are given donor breast milk. Some of you could consider this if you have milk for your child and several other babies. Just call your local medical center and ask for NICU unit. They can give you all the info if interested.
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Wow, that never occurred to me. Civilization is saved. Thank you, thank you.
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