Comment by froggertoaster
2 years ago
After 5 kids in 10 years, you come to realize that the standards aren't agreed upon, and best practices/recommendations change YEAR TO YEAR without fail.
Breastfeeding is one of the worst things hoisted upon mothers who are told "you must try no matter what" - seemingly ignoring the mental and physical health of the mother and the father all the while.
There are a lot of really good benefits to breastfeeding but it's not going to work for everybody or in every situation. I wouldn't fault a doctor for recommending it, but they shouldn't make someone feel bad if it isn't working out.
I want recommendations and best practices to change as our understanding of things improve though. The alternative would mean that either no more research is being done, or doctors are just ignoring anything they didn't learn while in school.
Our doctor was fine with it. The nurse called formula poison.
> The nurse called formula poison. An absolutely gross and ridiculous position.
My partner is a GP who has been doing early childhood screening. One thing she learnt after doing a special training is that advice on proper breastfeeding is very difficult to find. She found that with many mothers that had problems, some small adjustments could often make a huge difference (often causing a kind of hallelujah moment for the mothers). The issue is much of the advice given at the hospital is wrong or insufficient.
The training the she did is the possums program from Australia, if somebody wants to look it up I think some resources are available for free.
Completely agree. Half the lactation consultants have never breastfed themselves. The advice my wife got from the nurses versus what she got from her own mother and my grandmother were completely at odds. Both of those women told her to just keep doing it and to ignore the nurses while the professionals were single mindedly focused on a few days of weight loss. The milk came in (as all the older women expected) and my daughter breastfed for many years after.
Really the advice given is simply ridiculous. I honestly think most men who's children have nursed can give better advice than the lactation consultants. One that always makes me roll my eyes is the idea that a breastfed child should eat for a few minutes and then be full for an hour or two. That is simply... Not how it works. Babies like eating and being with mom. Breastfeeding mothers should expect to be with their newborn all the time. We are lucky to know many breastfeeding mothers and I don't know any family where the baby is satiated after ten minutes. And yet... The professionals are convinced this is how it works