[Go to the GlobalNews.Ca link to see the video presentation attached to the article.]
Newborn baby Landon kept crying, his weight was dropping, and his mom insists he was starving.
In a heartbreaking message on what would have been Landon’s fifth birthday, his mom Jillian Johnson says the little boy would be alive today if she had bottle-fed him instead of relying solely on breast milk.
Ultimately, Landon died after going into cardiac arrest triggered by severe dehydration. Johnson shared her story with other parents on website, fedisbest.org, to try to shed light on the plight new moms face with breastfeeding their babies and the guilt and stigma they may face when they can’t deliver.
“I still have many, many days of guilt and questions – what if I would’ve just given him a bottle? And anger because how would I have known…He was just crying out from his hunger. But I didn’t know. I should’ve known. I still struggle daily feeling as though I failed him,” she wrote…
“Breastfeeding is hard and the movies make it out to look easy. The first few weeks can be really challenging – you’re sleep deprived, your hormones are all over the place, your body is still recovering. It takes a lot of work and for many women it can be achieved with practice and support but for some women, it’s just not feasible,” Dr. Natasha Saunders, a pediatrician at the Hospital for Sick Children in Toronto, told Global News.
Saunders looks after patients from birth to 18 years old and spent the past few years managing newborn care. She’s seen firsthand the burden new moms carry to breastfeed their babies.
But for some women, they could have medical conditions that bar them from breastfeeding, their babies could have complications that prohibit breastfeeding, they could have trouble latching on, or moms could have an inadequate milk supply.
Please read more at GlobalNews.Ca.
The Fed is Best Foundation does not agree with the wording of the title of this article as some mothers do have adequate supply to solely rely on breastfeeding to feed their babies. However, it is very important that a mother work with her physician and breastfeeding consultants to determine whether or not her baby is actually receiving enough milk through breastfeeding. She can get help with improving supply and latch at this time while making sure her baby is safely fed.