Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
Jan
23
Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.
“Why Did You Bother Calling Me, You’re Doing Just Fine.”
“Why did you bother calling me, you’re doing just fine.” – Lactation Consultant to new mother two days *after* the mother had requested help. The baby had lost 11% of her birth weight and the mother’s milk had come in just before the lactation consultant arrived.
There are 39 comments to this post.
“Milk coming in” does not equal “doing just fine.” Maybe the baby is having trouble latching. Or maybe the mother just needs some encouragement and reassurance that, even with the 11% weight loss, she and her baby are doing the right things to make breastfeeding work.
This is not encouraging, this is dismissing.
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mommy23melody had this to say,
Jan 23, 2013 @ 8:45 am (Quote)
“Wow. You two are doing really well! I’m sorry it took me so long to get here, but I’m glad you found some help. If you let me know who helped you, I will make sure that they get the praise they deserve. Do you have any additional questions or concerns now that I am here?”
There ya go, LC. That’s much nicer.
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“Since everything got better with you staying away, why don’t you ensure permanent success and never attend to any of your clients?”
And I agree with Jenene: this mother/baby couplet may *not* be doing just fine. The mother’s milk came in, that’s all. There are a dozen other issues that need to be checked out, and if this LC doesn’t know a woman’s milk comes in at two to three days postpartum, then…ugh. Why is the hospital employing her?
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This was me. My nurses noticed there was a problem the day she was born because of her weight loss and suggested I call the LC. They arranged for me to get a breastpump to encourage my milk to come in. I wish everyone could have such awesome nurses.
I don’t know why the LC didn’t bother showing up until two days later. She wasn’t very helpful at all. She did look at my baby’s latch and proclaimed everything fine. 
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Jane Reply:
January 25th, 2013 at 4:21 am (Quote)
Did you get her latched on well afterward? I’m sorry.
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Heather P Reply:
January 25th, 2013 at 5:39 am (Quote)
Yes. Weeks later in a discussion with our pediatrician, we determined that her weight loss was probably due to the fact that I was producing a lot of colostrum. I pumped several ounces of it. Its supposed to have a laxative effect and she pooped about a dozen times her first 24 hours. It would have been nice to have such a conversation earlier.
She nursed successfully for 2.5 years.
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in my experience, the post partum nurses were more patient and helpful than the LC was in helping us figure out latch and positioning. they came and every hour to help me until we got it right without having to be paged. all the LC did was breeze in, tell me to strip the baby before each feeding and roughly bring her to my breast to make her latch.
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Heather P Reply:
January 23rd, 2013 at 9:48 am (Quote)
I am the OP. For some reason it won’t let me post my pink link.
Yep, my nurses were really there for me. They noticed there was a problem the day of my baby’s birth and suggested I request a LC. They were overall supportive and arranged for me to get a breastpump to encourage my milk to come in.
I don’t know why the LC didn’t bother showing up for two days. She wasn’t much help. She looked at our latch and proclaimed everything fine and left.
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This is me. Not sure if this post will work. My pink links haven’t been working lately.
My nurses notice there was a problem the day of my baby’s birth and suggested I request a LC. They were overall supportive and arranged for me to get a breastpump to encourage my milk to come in.
I don’t know why the LC didn’t bother showing up for two days. She wasn’t much help. She looked at our latch and proclaimed everything fine and left.
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This is me. Not sure if this post will work. My pink links haven’t been working lately.
My nurses noticed there was a problem the day of my baby’s birth and suggested I request a LC. They were overall supportive and arranged for me to get a breastpump to encourage my milk to come in.
I don’t know why the LC didn’t bother showing up for two days. She wasn’t much help. She looked at our latch and proclaimed everything fine and left.
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I can’t post. Errrrgh!
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Heather P Reply:
January 23rd, 2013 at 9:50 am (Quote)
There it goes. My pink links haven’t been working lately.
My nurses notice there was a problem the day of my baby’s birth and suggested I request a LC. They were overall supportive and arranged for me to get a breastpump to encourage my milk to come in.
I don’t know why the LC didn’t bother showing up for two days. She wasn’t much help. She looked at our latch and proclaimed everything fine and left.
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Heather P Reply:
January 23rd, 2013 at 9:51 am (Quote)
This is me. Not sure if this post will work. My pink links haven’t been working lately.
My nurses noticed there was a problem the day of my baby’s birth and suggested I request a LC. They were overall supportive and arranged for me to get a pump to encourage my milk to come in.
I don’t know why the LC didn’t bother showing up for two days. She wasn’t much help. She looked at our latch and proclaimed everything fine and left.
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Heather P Reply:
January 23rd, 2013 at 9:51 am (Quote)
I give up.
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Heather Reply:
January 23rd, 2013 at 9:54 am (Quote)
My pink links haven’t been working lately.
My nurses noticed there was a problem the day of my baby’s birth and suggested I request a LC. They were overall supportive and arranged for me to get a pump to encourage my milk to come in.
I don’t know why the LC didn’t bother showing up for two days. She wasn’t much help. She looked at our latch and proclaimed everything fine and left.
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SculptorAlison Reply:
January 24th, 2013 at 12:01 pm (Quote)
I wonder why this keeps happening to the pink linkers. Does it have something to do with the spottiness of the posts the last few weeks? :/
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My nurses noticed there was a problem the day of my baby’s birth and suggested I request a LC. They were overall supportive and arranged for me to get a pump to encourage my milk to come in.
I don’t know why the LC didn’t bother showing up for two days. She wasn’t much help. She looked at our latch and proclaimed everything fine and left.
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My pink links haven’t been working lately.
My nurses noticed there was a problem the day of my baby’s birth and suggested I request a LC. They were overall supportive and arranged for me to get a pump to encourage my milk to come in.
I don’t know why the LC didn’t bother showing up for two days. She wasn’t much help. She looked at our latch and proclaimed everything fine and left.
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I was so lucky that the lactation consultant at the hospital when I had my son was awesome — I had a pretty easy time, but she checked in on EVERYONE as soon as she could. The only person I heard it took her 2 days to see had the baby on Friday night of a weekend she was away! I wish every person who dealt with health care was as dedicated…
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My sister recently gave birth to a baby girl with an isolated cleft lip. She was only aware that this might be a possibility a week or so before the birth. The lactation consultants were not helpful at all. They gave her a pump and told her that she would almost certainly need to pump instead. She consulted some other IBCLCs and they offered her a special bottle nipple made for babies with cleft palates. Eventually, she just gave up asking for help. Her baby is three months old today and has not had any bottles or formula. She had a lot of trouble initially maintaining a seal on one breast because of the position of her cleft, but they worked through that as she grew and now are doing great. She is meeting her required weights for her surgery, which will be about two weeks from now. This doesn’t have much to do with the original post, but I thought everyone might like to hear a feel-good story. Also, for moms of babies with cleft lips and/or palates, there is not much helpful and encouraging information about breastfeeding. At the huge metropolitan hospital where the surgery is being performed, she is the only breastfeeding mom they have encountered. I wonder how many more could have been helped to succeed if they only had a little more help. (This is not to say that there aren’t cases where breastfeeding exclusively isn’t possible. There are plenty. I just don’t think that everyone should be discouraged just because some people have special circumstances.)
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DoulaTexas had this to say,
Jan 23, 2013 @ 7:28 pm (Quote)
I am an LC at a county hospital. We have lactation on duty 16 hrs a day 7 days a week. I’m continually shocked when I hear of regular hospitals (regular meaning not very small rural hospitals) that do not have an LC or CLC available every day. We round every 2-3 hrs and carry a pager so patients can page when they need help. We would love to have 24hr coverage but alas the people who hold the purse strings are not convinced. Do babies not breastfeed after midnight? Haha
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The lactation consultants at the huge hospital with the giant beautiful new maternity unit I birthed at only worked 9-5 M-F. And not holidays of course. I gave birth on Labor Day, so I waited till most of the way through Tuesday to see the LC. Luckily the baby nurses were way more useful anyway and were happy to help me with latch any hour of the day.
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Nica Reply:
January 24th, 2013 at 12:41 pm (Quote)
Same here – I birthed at a large hospital in an urban area. The LCs were only there during daytime hours (???) and had to cover a large maternity ward. I only saw one once during my entire stay.
Thankfully, the nurses were awesome, many had bf’d their own children and were willing to help me as long as I needed them help.
Seven months later, I’m still bf’ing my son…
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My lactation consultant tried to make me suppliment because she did not think the baby was getting enough food because she was only lasting for 5 minutes at a time. it took me days to explain to her that my milk was in before the baby was born so she was getting a full swallow of milk each suck not just a drop or 2 of colostrum.
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proginoskes had this to say,
Jan 24, 2013 @ 4:40 pm (Quote)
I had one visit with a LC after I had m daughter- She told me to force my daughter to keep her head still (she would fight and pull away and make it a huge stressful battle to BF her). When she was there, my daughter did latch on for a few minutes, and she said, “There, you’ve got it now!” and left. Two minutes later my daughter was fighting and not BFing again. I ended up switching to formula when she was 3 months old because I couldn’t handle the stress and the pressure from everyone to switch. I don’t have any regrets, though, I just did the best I could for her and BFing just didn’t work out for us.
I had MUCH better help with my boys- made it all the way to 5 months before my sensory issues made me have to stop.
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Goldilocks had this to say,
Jan 24, 2013 @ 8:00 pm (Quote)
I know this is not really related to this post so forgive me, but it does at least go with the site theme! It was also an interesting learning experience for me on patient point of view. A few days ago we had a school blood drive, when I went to give, the guy wasn’t very good. It hurt badly, very badly (I have a good pain tolerance, i now also have a baseball sized bruise to go with that). I started to scream and cry for him to leave me alone, that I changed my mind. I am fairly sure he was a student who needed a certain amount of sticks because he was not giving up, he kept pulling out to realign the needle and moving it under my skin as I screamed and tried to hit him, but really wasn’t in a good position, he had my arm hostage. It gives me a new appreciation for what some patients go through when getting health care, even minor healthcare.
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Jane Reply:
January 25th, 2013 at 4:20 am (Quote)
Good grief, what a horrible experience! Did you get a supervisor over when you screamed? Because they *should* have been there like a shot when someone screamed.
I’m sorry you went through that.
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Goldilocks Reply:
January 25th, 2013 at 4:05 pm (Quote)
No one came. Someone told me later he had been having that issue all day (people screaming and trying to get away) so I guess they just quit reacting to screams.
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Jane Reply:
January 25th, 2013 at 4:14 pm (Quote)
That’s horrible. If this was through the Red Cross, can you call them and complain up the chain of command? Especially if he left bruises on your arm, take a photo. It’s highly possible that many people who experienced that kind of treatment won’t be donating again (blood or money) unless they know they have proper protocols in place.
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Amanda Reply:
January 25th, 2013 at 6:54 am (Quote)
Wow that sounds awful. Pretty sure that would turn me off of donating blood!
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genniemom Reply:
January 25th, 2013 at 6:44 pm (Quote)
I had a really similar experience and haven’t donated again since. The woman who was drawing my blood stuck me twice, isolating a chunk of skin between the two pokes. The chunk came off and a huge patch of scar tissue is now there. That’s my only ‘good’ vein, so I have to use it for all of my blood draws (and that’s been a lot, what with all of the miscarriages and pregnancies.)It really sucks.
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Add Your Comment.
Let’s see, I asked for you 2 days ago because I needed help? In those 2 days I hope the mother was able to get the help she needed from a nurse or other support. A lot can happen in 2 days.
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