Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Nov
7
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“You Better Feed That Baby Soon…”
“You better feed that baby soon, or I’m going to have to call Child Welfare on you”- Lactation consultant to new mom who was having trouble breastfeeding.
There are 34 comments to this post.
You know, I was under the assumption that lactation consultants were supposed to be there to help breastfeeding mums to breastfeed. As such, that they supported breastfeeding.
After having my own breastfeeding sabotaged by lactation consultants with an agenda, and reading comments like this, I don’t understand what, exactly, the point of having LCs is. I can have my breastfeeding ruined by a nurse without extra ‘qualifications’ just fine thanks!
Having said that, this needs some context. Most likely the baby was 3 days old and the LC is as much of an idiot as mine was. But I have met breastfeeding nazis who seem to think babies don’t need food in the first month, and if bub was getting up there, a couple weeks old and mum was refusing to supplement, it might be a bigger deal.
But that’s unlikely, mum probably was only just getting her milk in. Another strike against LCs
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Kristy Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 7:57 pm (Quote)
Wow… you’ve met Nazis that breastfeed? I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone who still identifies with the Nazi party… much less one that breastfed.
Or have you met breastfeeding supporters who are marching formula feeders to their deaths so that they can be fairly equated to others who have killed millions of people? That too is something I have yet to see.
Amazing how much evil there still is in today’s world. Wars, starvation, women who support breastfeeding in ways others don’t agree with. Yep… all about the same.
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Ashley Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 8:22 pm (Quote)
Perhaps you aren’t aware of the definition of the word “nazi” when used with a lowercase letter. 
Na·zi [naht-see, nat-] Show IPA noun, plural -zis, adjective
noun: Sometimes Offensive. (often lowercase) a person who is fanatically dedicated to or seeks to control a specified activity, practice, etc.: a jazz nazi who disdains other forms of music; tobacco nazis trying to ban smoking.
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Kristin Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 9:15 pm (Quote)
Don’t feed the trolls 
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Kristy Reply:
November 7th, 2011 at 9:53 pm (Quote)
I try to fight the urge but when they start using offensive terms and claim it is ok because someone wrote the term into a dictionary somewhere it is hard not to.
There are all sorts of offensive terms in dictionaries… doesn’t make them ok to use.
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Lisa Reply:
November 8th, 2011 at 5:43 am (Quote)
ITA. Nazis killed millions of people, I don’t care if you put it in lower-case, it’s still offensive.
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BeckyJ Reply:
November 8th, 2011 at 6:30 am (Quote)
So do cigarettes, abortions, drunk drivers. But not that many people are quitting them, are they?
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Kristy Reply:
November 8th, 2011 at 6:36 am (Quote)
Oh good as long as someone else is doing it then it is ok. Now the term isn’t offensive.
Why don’t you save the term nazi to describe these other groups of people who *are* also killing millions instead of tossing it at random at groups of people who are *not*?
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abba12 Reply:
November 9th, 2011 at 2:59 pm (Quote)
I apologise for my offence, none was intended, I used the term only to imply unwavering overzealousness. I actually read the term for the first time on an american website so I thought it was in common usage there, but I forgot how sensitive americans still are about the Nazi’s. Australia has a different sence of humour and we laugh about the bad things so they have no hold on us anymore. I forgot my audiance, and I made an assumption based on one american website. I apologise again for the offense caused.
Having said that, I suppose belittling my experience and the pain my baby and I went through due to overzealous breastfeeders is a moral high ground. Openly making fun of people instead of stating that you considered something inappropriate, definitly the ‘better path’ here.
I used a word that would have been acceptable in my culture, the laugh to stop from crying, have a go at everything, outback australian culture (forget the city people, they lost their sense of humour years ago). I’m sorry for the language barrier and I will refrain from using the term around primarily American audiances again. Thank you to those who saw my comment for what it was.
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BeckyJ Reply:
November 8th, 2011 at 6:28 am (Quote)
When I think of someone who is hardcore into something and really really anal about it, I say “that person is a (insert word)nazi” In this case, it was “breastfeeding nazi”. Not a Nazi that breastfeeds. Quit being so sensitive.
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Lisa Reply:
November 8th, 2011 at 8:21 am (Quote)
Copying what Sam said below: “You can’t find a better way to get your point across, or you don’t understand why using it is super offensive to people, you’re no better than the people you’re putting down and maybe worse.”
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Jane Reply:
November 8th, 2011 at 4:00 am (Quote)
Why do hospitals have LCs? Because of this:
http://www.ahrq.gov/data/hcup/charts/5admiss.htm
When a couple is deciding where to have their baby, they will invariably say, “We wanted to breastfeed our baby, but we know some moms who couldn’t breastfeed,” and the tour guide can say, “Oh, we have FIVE TRAINED LACTATION CONSULTANTS on staff! Every mom gets two sessions with the lactation consultants before discharge.”
That’s why the hospitals have lactation consultants. Because at some point, the head nurse came in with a memo from management and said, “They say we need five lactation consultants. Barbara, you breastfed, right? Can you make the class? It’s on Tuesday from 3:30 to 4. Anna? Tillie…? Wait, Tillie’s off today, so I’ll sign her up for it. Aaaaand….who else…?”
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Amber Reply:
November 8th, 2011 at 5:16 am (Quote)
I am one of those breastfeeding Nazis who “refused to supplement” for the entire first YEAR of life. He is 9 now and had no problems with growth or development.
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jaed Reply:
November 8th, 2011 at 3:11 pm (Quote)
(I think the “refused to supplement” thing was about cases in which the baby actually isn’t able to feed well enough to get enough calories in – at some point after several days this does become a problem. Realizing that supplementing can interfere with the bf relationship, but if for whatever reason it’s not possible to get it going adequately, the baby does need to eat *something*.)
Since you do not have a zombie baby 
I’m guessing this wasn’t the case with you.
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abba12 Reply:
November 9th, 2011 at 2:49 pm (Quote)
Please see my apology below
As for supplementing, I was talking about supplementing if she was unable to feed the baby which appeared to be the case. If you could feed baby, great, no need to supplement for that year, congrats! If you can’t successfully breastfeed to begin with though, after the first couple of weeks baby needs to eat something. As someone who remembers the hysterical crying of my own baby who was completely starved her first week of life (4 days after milk came in), due to LCs who couldn’t do their jobs and overzealous breastfeeders who considered formula poison, we aren’t all so fortunate to have, not the bodys, but the support, and to not be sabotaged in hospital.
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Katy Reply:
November 8th, 2011 at 9:28 am (Quote)
http://www.phdinparenting.com/2009/05/07/breastfeeding-nazis/
Why I stopped using the term. Made me think, there is always a better thing to say than using term like this.
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Details Reply:
November 8th, 2011 at 11:04 am (Quote)
So what exactly is the right word for someone who trys to control you by limiting your access to information? What Do you call the person who won’t help you wean because she doesn’t think your baby is old enough yet? What do you call someone who claims to be there to help, but who implys that if you were a good person/mother that this would all be easy for you? I totally understand that comparing overly judgmental lacavists to the real Nazi’s is insulting. But one thing you have to remember is that BEFORE the Nazi’s put a single Jew to death, they believed they had the right to. The point is the overly judgmental LC here believes she has the right to say “I will call CPS on you if you don’t feed this baby” while offering no real help. So they are following the same steps that the Nazi’s did and they need to take a step back and judge their own behavior. They need that slap across the face that says wake up! You have already crossed a line. You better readjust yourself NOW!
I’m a big fan of EXCUSE ME?!? It gives you two seconds to think about what to say next while the idiot LC can also think about a better way to say what she needed to say. It points out the fact that whatever was just said couldn’t possibly have been a good thing to say and didn’t come across well.
But when discussing what this person said or did to you with a third party what term would you use? If you want to stop the use of the term, you need to come up with a replacement. Afterall Seinfeld used Soup Nazi and he is Jewish. So I suggest you work on a new term that rolls off the tongue and describes the attitude to a tee.
Of course I would also suggest that more people stop telling their friends all about how they were abused by a know-it-all nurse, doctor, neighbor, or MIL and more time asking the nurse, doctor, neighbor, and MIL to consider rephrasing their words and and recalling their job descriptions.
Isn’t that pretty much what this site is about. I think somebody said something they shouldn’t have said, but I was in a vulnerable place at the time and didn’t respond the way I would have liked. Am I right? What should I have said? What can I do about it now that a certain amount of time has passed?
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1. A lactation consultant’s job description is there to help mothers who are having trouble breastfeeding.
2. The fact that the mother requested a LC’s help mean that she’s not just abandoning her baby and refusing to feed her/him.
3. Why would they waste CPS’s time on a case that is clearly not abuse, but simply a case of a care provider refusing to do her job.
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Sam had this to say,
Nov 8, 2011 @ 1:31 am (Quote)
As soon as anyone uses that word, they’ve lost me. You can’t find a better way to get your point across, or you don’t understand why using it is super offensive to people, you’re no better than the people you’re putting down and maybe worse.
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I have to wonder if this woman is a true IBCLC. If she is, she should be reported to ILCA. If not, she should not be calling herself a lactation consultant. She would be a lactation specialist (and not a real good one, it seems).
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GRRRRRR! (OK, deep breath, Wendy).
I am a social worker. And like many of you teachers, nurses, doctors, and other social workers, I can tell you stories of child abuse that would make your skin crawl and give you nightmares for the next week.
For this reason, it really, really, REEEEEEEEEEAAALLLY pisses me off to see control freaks like this nurse exploit the already overworked, underfunded CPS workers who are far too busy dealing with cases of REAL CHILD ABUSE.
A similar case happened in Nevada a couple of years ago. Despite parents getting a pediatrician’s rubber stamp to leave a hospital with their jaundiced newborn, a nurse went ahead and called CPS.
Love CPS or loathe it, it’s a fact that when providers call its social workers willy-nilly to prove their Alpha Dog status over patients, taxpayer money is wasted, and abused children in genuine need become even more in danger of getting overlooked. It’s a sad story all around. I really wish there were away to prosecute this kind of behavior; it’s as heinous as prank-calling 911.
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Maddy Reply:
November 8th, 2011 at 4:09 pm (Quote)
This! 100%! It sickens me to see nonsense like this going on.
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Billie Jo Reply:
November 10th, 2011 at 5:25 pm (Quote)
“I really wish there were away to prosecute this kind of behavior; it’s as heinous as prank-calling 911.”
THIS is needed but I don’t see it ever happening. 
People would then unfortunately be afraid to call when someone is truly in danger for fear of the repercussions.
Sad all around.
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Keely Brand Reply:
November 14th, 2011 at 7:56 pm (Quote)
Wendy, I cannot tell you how amazed I was to read your comment honestly. CPS was called by my school at 12 when I was being beaten with a baseball bat and kids from school in the locker room saw, and told the school, who called CPS. They took pictures of the bruises, called my step mom who was “taking care” of me after my dad died, and sent me home with her. The abuse just got worse. I finally moved out at 15, into a loving home with someone i now call mom. When I was 4 months away from being 18, the step mom found out where I was living, and called CPS on us. I was put into CPS custody until my 18th birthday, and then ran away because I pissed my case worker off by telling her that is was messed up that they wouldnt do shit when I was really being abused, and were going to send me back to where I was being abused instead of letting me stay where I had been happy and safe for 3 years, was in college, gotten my GED, had a car, and a job at the Childrens hospital. They threatened to extend CPS custody over me until age 20 if I didnt “act right” I am 22 now and since leaving that day, havent been back or seen the step mom, and am back where I am happy and loved.
So Im glad to see that now all case workers are like that.
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I had no idea that threats or sarcasim help get nursing off to a good start. How about you keep your shitty comments to yourself and actually do your damn job.
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