Fed is Best Foundation receives stories from mothers who have been led to harm their infants in the pursuit of increasing exclusive breastfeeding rates. Learn about the dangers of insufficient feeding in breastfed infants caused by Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative.
I’ve been trying to write this for two months but my mama bear anger has been difficult to process. I’m done with obsessing now, and I hope telling my story will help me and any other mother who may be feeling the same way. I want to move on from the anger so I can be the happiest and the best mother for my baby.
Several weeks ago, as I was perusing Facebook, I came across an article on the Fed Is Best Foundation’s page that felt like a punch in the stomach. According to new medical research, the number of incidents where exhausted new mothers drop their babies and the incidence of newborn head injuries had gone up substantially in hospitals that no longer offer newborn nurseries, but instead require mothers to “room-in” with their babies. It further angered me to read that most of these head injuries took place while a mother was breastfeeding.
I was so upset by this article that I couldn’t sleep that night, because all I could think was, “That could have been Leo. Why, why, why was I ever put in such a dangerous and inhumane situation that this could have happened?”
When I was pregnant, I was 100 percent sure I wanted to breastfeed my baby. I read countless books and attended a prenatal lactation class to help me prepare for breastfeeding. I learned a lot of things, including that the size of a newborn stomach is no greater than an olive (so untrue), and that colostrum is all they need to eat during their first days.
“Just trust your body.”
I just want to say thank you so much for your foundation’s web page and support group. I can’t say thank you enough! This is exactly the support system I have needed in my life since my daughter was admitted into the hospital at 3 weeks old due to failure to thrive.
This was worst experience of my life as a new mama and when the doctor told me my daughter could have died I was broken.
by Christine K.
When the Fed Is Best Foundation launched two years ago, a few nurses sent us messages about their experiences working in a Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) hospital. They shared common concerns about watching exclusively breastfed babies crying out in hunger from not enough colostrum while being refused supplementation just so that high exclusive breastfeeding rates were met. Two years later, we now receive messages from nurses, physicians, lactation consultants, and other health professionals, regularly. They express their concerns while asking for patient educational resources. They tell us their stories and they need support and direction on what to do about unethical and dangerous practices they are forced to take part in. We collected their stories and are beginning a blog series on health professionals who are now speaking out about the Baby-Friendly Health Initiative (BFHI) and the WHO Ten Steps of Breastfeeding.
Christine K. is a Neonatal Nurse Practitioner currently working in a BFHI Hospital with 25 years of experience. She has worked in both BFHI and non-BFHI hospitals and talks about her concerns about taking care of newborns in the Baby-Friendly setting.
Regarding Unsafe Skin-To-Skin Practices
In BFHI facilities, skin-to-skin is mandated. The protocol calls for skin-to-skin at birth, for the first hour, then ongoing until discharge. New mothers are constantly told that it is important for bonding, for breastfeeding, for milk production and for temperature regulation of the newborn. Baby baths are delayed for skin-to-skin time and nurses are required to document in detail the skin-to-skin start and end times. There is no education on safety regarding skin-to-skin time, only that it is to be done. I have been responsible for the resuscitation of babies who coded while doing skin-to-skin. One died, and the other baby is severely disabled. Mothers are not informed of the risks of constant and unsupervised skin-to-skin time. Mothers have complained to me that they felt forced to do skin-to-skin to warm up their cold or hypoglycemic infant because they are told skin-to-skin time will help their infant resolve these issues when in fact it doesn’t. There is also no assessment of the mother’s comfort level with constant skin-to-skin. It’s very discouraging to hear staff say things like, “That mother refused to do skin-to-skin,” like it was a crime or an act of child abuse. The judgment is harsh on mothers who fail to follow the protocol. I have noticed that partners are pushed to the side, especially in the first hour of life, not being able to hold their newborn, due to this strict policy. Their involvement has been discounted in the name of the exclusive breastfeeding protocol. Continue reading
