Category: *Top Blogs

The Loss Of Our Son Has Devastated Our Family – This Time I Will Be Supplementing With Formula After Every Nursing session

3 Comments

I had a beautiful, healthy pregnancy with Bryson, with the help of Clomid (a fertility drug), like my first pregnancy with my daughter. After about 31 hours of induced labor, Bryson was here. Seven pounds, twelve ounces, and seemingly healthy! He latched like a champ immediately, and we had zero complications of any sort while in the hospital. He had wet and dirty diapers and was breastfeeding well, every 2–3 hours. His discharge weight was 7 lbs, and I had a follow-up appointment scheduled for two days later.

NEWT is the first tool that allows pediatric healthcare providers and parents to see how a newborn’s weight during the first days and weeks following childbirth compares with a large sample of newborns, which can help with early identification of weight loss and weight gain issues. Bryson was discharged with a weight loss of 9.7 percent at 36 hours of age. The NEWT graph indicates his weight loss was excessive.

Continue reading →

Hospital Drops Baby Friendly Program After Doctors Baby Was Harmed

5 Comments
Written by an anesthesiologist and Intensivist physician

“The biggest achievement of my life as a physician was stopping my hospital’s Baby-Friendly program after my child was harmed.”

It was September 20th, and we were headed to the hospital for my induction.  I was nervous, as any first-time mother would be. I was worried that I was doing the wrong thing, even though I knew the literature, and my physicians supported my decision for an elective induction at 40 weeks. I was already dilated to 4 cm and my baby had dropped way back at 33 weeks.  We all thought it would take just a hint of Pitocin, but I labored for 24 hours until my son was born. I was later told that he was born with a compound hand (up by his head), causing the prolonged pushing time and his distress with each contraction.

Continue reading →

Will Breast Milk Protect My Baby From Getting Sick? Passive Immunity 101

2 Comments
Written by Jody Segrave-Daly MS, RN, IBCLC

As a veteran neonatal nurse and lactation consultant, parents often ask me how the antibodies found in breast/human milk work to protect their babies. Published research on immunology is highly technical and difficult to understand, and unfortunately, the readily available information (especially on social media) contains a lot of false and conflicting information. So, I’m here to share evidence-based information about this important topic in a way that is easier for most parents to understand.

How does the immune system work?

Our immune system is very complex, but generally speaking; it is responsible for fighting off both germs that enter our bodies from our environment and also for protecting us from diseases like cancer that occur within our bodies. I will be focusing on how the immune system fights off germs, which it does by producing antibodies.

Continue reading →

Baby-Friendly USA Acknowledges Their Mistakes; Are They Going To Make Real Changes In The New Year Or Are They Providing Lip Service To Mothers?

4 Comments

Dear BFUSA,

Thank you for your long-overdue public acknowledgment endorsing what the Fed Is Best Foundation has been fiercely advocating for over the past 3 years. 

According to your recent blog post you now agree with us that:

1. Delayed onset of copious milk production is common. 

BFUSA: “Delayed lactogenesis is actually increasingly common because the risk factors for it are potentially increasing,” Dr. Rosen-Carole says. “When a baby is born into that situation, the goal is to closely monitor what the baby is doing, instead of giving a bottle right away. “If the baby is hungry and they’re not getting enough milk out of the mother’s breast, then they need to be supplemented,” she says. 

Continue reading →

Baby-Friendly: Failure and the Art of Misdirection

1 Comment
By Alex Fischer, PhD Candidate, Brooke Orosz, PhD, Jody Segrave-Daly, RN, IBCLC, Lynnette Hafken, MA, IBCLC and Christie Del Castillo-Hegyi, M.D.

Any good magician will tell you that the secret to their trade is misdirection—making the audience look one way while doing something the other way. And even knowing this, most of us are still baffled by a magician’s tricks. So it’s no wonder that Baby-Friendly USA (BFUSA) has tried to employ that same tactic in their statement titled “Fact vs FIB: The Impact of Baby-Friendly on Breastfeeding Initiation Rates.”  In this statement written by an anonymous author representing BFUSA, they attempt to dispute the findings of a recent study published in Journal of Pediatrics, “Outcomes from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention 2018 Breastfeeding Report Card: Public Policy Implications” by Bass et al. This study examines the impact of statewide breastfeeding initiation rates as well as the impact of BFHI facilities on continued breastfeeding after hospital discharge (exclusive or combination). The Fed is Best Foundation read this study and agreed: “Baby-Friendly does not work.” These five words are the instigators of the entire statement by BFUSA and its misrepresentation of a very robust scientific study.  Continue reading →