Guest post: Kat on when a nursing problem isn't a nursing problem.

Today I'm sharing a contribution by Kat, who writes about another mother and her struggle to make breastfeeding work in the face of poor weight gain and lack of support from her pediatrician.  I'm curious what you think about the conclusion to the story. 

 

Mrs. Smith gave birth to her sixth child in May.  Having never successfully breastfed she vowed this time would be different. Baby Abby was a natural, nursing eagerly from the delivery room.

 

It soon became apparent that things weren't going to be so easy. Abby wasn't gaining weight.  Her pediatrician scolded Mrs. Smith at every weigh in and refused any help she requested.

 

Mrs. Smith knew in her gut that something was terribly wrong.  The doctor insisted that the only thing wrong with Abby was that she was being denied adequate nutrition - nutrition readily available on the supermarket shelf.

 

At 2.5 months old, Abby was a mere pound above her birth weight and her mother was again scolded by her doctor. He insisted that she give the child formula, and told her that if Abby didn't gain a certain amount he would diagnose her as failing to thrive.  "I'm your doctor," he said, "and I'm putting my foot down."

 

Obviously upset, she went home and gave her daughter her first bottle of formula. She had no choice.  Failure to thrive surely meant she was a bad mother.  Bottle after bottle, she shrugged off her instincts and mourned the loss of the one thing, she felt, that made her Abby's mother. She was overcome by guilt and sadness.

 

Two weeks later she returned to the doctor and placed the baby on the scale with anticipation.  The scale's digital readout read 7 lbs 1 oz.  The baby had lost one ounce.

 

Certainly there was a mistake! She tearfully waited in the exam room for the doctor to come in. "Did you give her formula?" he asked. Mrs. Smith nodded yes.  The doctor, angry at her apparent refusal to follow his directions, checked the baby over.  When he listened to her heart a puzzled look grew on his face.  A heart murmur!

 

As it turns out, the doctor had always been so certain that Mrs. Smith was damaging her child by breastfeeding that he had failed to listen to Mrs. Smith's suspicions that something else was wrong. Abby didn't fail to grow because she was breastfed; she failed to grow because her heart was severely deformed.

 

Abby's mother spent the next few weeks syringe feeding her baby what little breastmilk she had while Abby underwent surgery at the hospital. The hospital staff assured her that breastmilk was "nature's miracle drug" and the best thing she could do for her daughter. They encouraged her to hold Abby skin to skin, to have her suckle and snooze at her mother's breast often. Abby recovered and left the hospital in record time.

 

Abby and her mother now enjoy a wonderful breastfeeding relationship with the help of supportive and tireless medical staff, who assisted in building and maintaining the milk supply that had so severely dwindled in the weeks of formula. Abby is a happy, thriving one year old who was given a special gift from her mother and her hospital caregivers - the gift of breastmilk.

 

Shortly after returning home, Mrs Smith received a letter in the mail from her pediatrican.  It read: "I just didn't know. I had always blamed breastfeeding first, to think of it as substandard to a substance that I could see and calculate.... Thank you and your daughter for teaching me far more about the needs and rights of a mother and child better than medical school ever could."

 

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Comments

[RCM]

How wonderful the doctor was humble enough to write that letter. Many times a "mea culpa" takes away the anger and frustration.

[onetinkerbell]

This is so similar to a problem that I've been facing with Gwyneth. She has severe GERD (read: really bad acid reflux) and lost so much weight that I was basically forced to formula feed in order to help her gain weight. The GERD had caused her to stop nursing almost completely and, not having any help caring for her so that I could keep up a pumping schedule (my husband was in Iraq), my supply dwindled to almost nothing. When the doctor insisted that her weight loss was the issue, it took multiple times of explaining that the weight loss was only a symptom and that once I could reestablish my supply we'd be fine.
Despite the AAP's recommendations for breastfeeding, doctors have yet to understand that mothers who breastfeed are really doing something commendable and that it is something that they should support in spite of all the things that tell them otherwise. Statistics, measurements and 'milestones' don't always give the whole story. Thank goodness this doc saw the error of his ways.