Category: Baby-Friendly Protocol Complications: Starvation, Jaundice, Hypoglycemia, Dehydration, Newborn Falls

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.

My Three Day Old Baby Went Limp And Turned Blue; She Was Starving And I Almost Lost Her

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First of all, I had always seen your Facebook page and thought to myself “this could never happen to me” or “I wouldn’t be that naive.” But now, can I share my story?

I was induced at 39 weeks due to preeclampsia. Since my cervix was stubborn, however, I ended up with a c-section. My baby was born 7 lbs 11 oz on January 10, 2018.

 I was hooked up to magnesium to help with my blood pressure and was bedridden for 24 hours after the c-section. My hospital was a BFHI-certified hospital, and they bragged about their excellent lactation consultants (IBCLCs). That made me happy because I had always dreamed of breastfeeding. I never imagined how hard it would be.

I was recovering from major surgery and felt weak, overwhelmed and quickly became frustrated trying to take care of my baby and breastfeed her. I cried multiple times during my short stay. Why was this so hard? I constantly had to ask for breastfeeding help from the nurses and lactation consultants. By the end of the second day, though, I was proud I got my baby to breastfeed without help. She was constantly feeding, every hour on the dot. No one was concerned about her excessive breastfeeding at all. The nurses seemed pleased with her diapers counts.

#3 Making Sure Your Newborn fed DiaperCounts.png

We were discharged from the hospital not even 48 hours after my c-section. The first night with my baby was unbearably tough. If she wasn’t breastfeeding, she was crying. This was not fussing. She cried and screamed and the only way she stopped crying was if she was on my breast.  My mom stayed by my side most of the night trying to help soothe her, but my baby only wanted to be on my breast. Continue reading →

Starvation Jaundice and Bilirubin-Induced Brain Injury in Breastfed Newborns

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Lecture Delivered by Dr. Lawrence Gartner, Director of Baby-Friendly USA

We have uncovered a lecture provided to lactation consultants at a prominent breastfeeding conference given by Baby-Friendly USA Director, Dr. Lawrence Gartner, who discussed the risk of brain injury from starvation-related jaundice, called kernicterus, 90% of which occurs to breastfed babies who lose excessive weight, according to his lecture. Yet despite this training, no information on the risk of preventable brain injury from starvation-related jaundice in breastfed newborns exists in patient-directed breastfeeding literature published by breastfeeding advocacy groups other than our own.

 

 

 

 

Exclusively Breastfed Newborns Have Double the Risk of Being Rehospitalized

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By Christie del Castillo-Hegyi, M.D.

This week, the journal Academic Pediatrics, published a study conducted by the Newborn Weight Loss research group led by Drs. Valerie Flaherman and Ian Paul, which consisted of 143,889 healthy, term and near-term newborns born at the Baby-Friendly Northern California Kaiser Permanente hospital system from 2009-2013.[1] They included newborns who were discharged from their birth hospitalization without requirement of intensive care, which includes newborns who developed jaundice before discharge. They looked at the effects of mode of feeding, namely exclusive breastfeeding and exclusive formula feeding during the birth hospitalization on the rates of rehospitalization and number of outpatient follow-up visits. In addition, they looked at the effects of percent weight loss on the same outcomes.

Overall, 6.2% (1 in 16) of the healthy term newborns studied were readmitted; 4% were vaginally delivered and 2.2% were Cesarean delivered. This represents 8921 newborns over the five year period, almost 5 babies per day. They showed that exclusively breastfed newborns had slightly more than double the risk of being rehospitalized, even when adjusted for gestational age, birth weight and maternal race/ethnicity. Exclusively breastfed newborns also had significantly more (32% more) outpatient visits in the first 30 days after birth compared to exclusively formula-fed newborns. The leading cause of readmission was for hyperbilirubinemia or jaundice and need for inpatient phototherapy. The purpose of phototherapy is to reduce blood bilirubin levels in order to prevent or limit brain injury, a complication of insufficient feeding and dehydration commonly found in exclusively breastfed newborns before the onset of copious milk production (lactogenesis II).

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I Shared My Story a Year Ago And I Was Told To Go Kill Myself – How I Am Healing

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By Mandy Dukovan, MS, MFT, Marriage and Family Therapist, Fed is Best Foundation Senior Advisor

It’s incredibly hard to put into words all the things that The Fed Is Best Foundation has done for me over the past year.  I stumbled upon the Foundation when I noticed a friend of mine “liked” one of their blog posts. I was a first-time mom who was struggling with many different feelings and wasn’t sure who or where to turn to. My son was two months at the time and was just beginning to thrive after I began supplementing him with formula. While I was so happy to see my baby finally gaining weight and thriving, I had haunting memories and raw emotions that I struggled to sort out. I had immense guilt that I didn’t see the signs that my baby was hungry, which tortured me non-stop. I was embarrassed to look at his 1-month picture and now see that he was obviously malnourished, but how on earth did I miss this at the time?

MandyBrock

1 Month Old

I was angry that I didn’t follow my instincts that something was wrong with him and was angry that I believed all the terrible things I was told by lactivists that would happen to him if I gave him a drop of formula. I worried that we would not have the kind of bond that babies who were exclusively breastfed (EBF) experienced with their mothers. I now know our bond is much stronger because we bottle-fed him and no longer experienced the immense stress that came each time I tried to breastfeed my baby. I got to a point where I dreaded even trying to breastfeed him, but I was told that was the best thing I could do for my baby, so I kept going at the expense of my baby’s health and my well-being. I honestly believed I was the only mother who had experienced what we went through because I only heard the stories about how amazing and natural breastfeeding was, and every mother could breastfeed if only she tried hard enough.

Since I am a therapist, I knew I needed to share my story. I found courage in my strong desire for other babies and mothers not to struggle. I also found courage in the fact that I needed a reason for all of the suffering—I needed to know that Brock’s struggle was not in vain. I kept telling myself, “If I reach even one mother and prevent even one baby from suffering like Brock, then I have to do this.”  

 

Then I shared my story… Continue reading →

The Shaming Began In My Hospital Breastfeeding Course And Never Stopped

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The shaming began prior to delivery, at the hospital breastfeeding class.  A soon-to-be mom asked if she should keep some formula on-hand, just in case she was unable to breastfeed.  The lactation consultant (IBCLC) insisted she not keep any formula around because, as soon as you start feeding the baby formula, you will give up on breastfeeding and never forgive yourself! She also said it was rare for a mother to not be able to produce enough milk, which is not true.  I told her it was fine to get some formula, if for nothing than to relieve the intense pressure of exclusively breastfeeding that was being forced in our class.  The IBCLC also instructed us not to use our pump for at least twelve weeks, and even then, only if we were returning to work–because pumping would interfere our milk supply. I later learned this is also  not true.

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