We started our journey at 5 lbs 12 oz; already small enough to curl up and fit into one hand.  My baby was diagnosed with IUGR despite being born at 40 weeks gestation. I will never forget my hospital experience and how horrible some of the nurses were. She was born at 5:30 am and the nurses pushed and pushed us to breastfeed her. While I kept trying, my baby would weakly latch and suckle a few times then become exhausted.  We continued  to offer her the breast every hour for 24 hours  and nothing was working and no one was concerned she wasn’t eating anything at all.  I trusted everything was going to be ok.

 On day two a nurse comes in and tells me my baby is hungry and I’m not making milk…but by then it was too late. She lost almost a pound over night and she was too weak to take formula orally. We were rushed by ambulance to a NICU unit one hour away from where I delivered her.

After she was stabilized for severe dehydration and starvation with IV fluids and dextrose, she was fed with a tube. We basically had to teach her how to suck. Squishing her little cheeks together. We were syringe feeding her when she tolerated it. It was 14 days before she finally “latched” and sucked her first bottle down!

We spent 28 days in the NICU before she was able to bottle feed with an NG feeding tube. If my baby was supplemented immediately she never would have endured a horrific admission to the NICU.  She could have easily been taken care of at our local hospital but because she was not supplemented and breastfeeding was pushed at all costs, we are left with the financial and emotional burden of breastfeeding no matter what!  Please don’t let your baby go without feeding, even if your hospital nurses and lactation consultants say your baby will be fine.  This is not true.

                                    Today, she is 3 months old and thriving.  #FedIsBest

Among the most vulnerable moms are those who are most educated in exclusive breastfeeding. Because we are trained to fully believe in the guidelines recommended by health organizations and because mothers are not educated about the complications of underfeeding, we can miss serious signs of newborn starvation. Rachel is a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner. She would like to share her story so that other mothers and babies do not have to suffer.

As long as I can remember, I wanted to be a mom. Fresh out of nursing school, I started out as a neonatal nurse in the ICU. I watched the tiniest of babies get fed through tubes. We carefully monitored their weight every day, eventually most would go home, happy and healthy. A few years later, I became a Pediatric Nurse Practitioner and saw babies in an outpatient setting as a primary care provider. I would monitor babies’ weights and help moms through their struggles with breastfeeding and feeding in general.

When it was finally my turn to become a new mom last October. I figured “I got this!” I took all the breastfeeding classes I could, received a ton of breastfeeding supplies and even bought a really expensive nursing chair. I was blessed with a very healthy pregnancy and “normal delivery,” my son even came on his due date of all days. When he came out, we did skin-to-skin for about 20 minutes before they took him and weighed him, 8 lbs 15 oz! They brought him back to me, but my son, Hunter, didn’t “latch on” right away as they told me he would in the classes.  He didn’t even “look for my breast.” By time we got into our recovery room, I ate (I went 24 hours without eating, I was starved after labor!), it was about 4 hours after delivery before Hunter finally latched on. The night nurse came into my room to help me breastfeed my son for the first time and I remember her pulling at my nipple “to get it to flowing.” The pain from the tugging and pulling was nothing like I have ever experienced before. It hurt and very badly too! All of this, only to get out a tiny drop of “liquid gold” as they so often call it. I remember him crying and getting frustrated because nothing was coming out. I could barely hold him because I still had an IV in my left wrist and it was painful to get him into the best position. “It’s ok,” the nurse said, “he can go a while without eating, his tummy is so small.”

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My beautiful boy was born on July 13, 2016 at 8:33 p.m. in a Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative (BFHI) certified hospital in Florida. I had every intention of breastfeeding my child, heck, I even wanted to continue beyond age one. I took classes for breastfeeding, read everything I could get my hands on, and I felt completely ready and excited to start this journey with my little one.
From the start we were plagued with latch issues due to a tongue tie and pretty severe lip tie. In the hospital he had his tongue tie clipped and we had three board-certified lactation consultants come into our room to help us achieve a perfect latch. Looking back now, I should have known something wasn’t right. I should have recognized the infrequent urination, the constant nursing (some days as many as 21 times in 24 hours), and the fact his skin hung from his once round body.
Oliver was born at 8 pounds 10 ounces and by 4 weeks old he only weighed 8 pounds 2 ounces; simply maintaining his weight was a constant battle for me.

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I am currently in Denmark, one of the Scandinavian countries which boasts some of the world’s highest breastfeeding rates. It is illegal for baby formulas to be advertised or promoted. No ‘samples’ are ever given from a hospital. As a result, some 98% of mothers leaving maternity wards are breastfeeding their babies. Moving to Denmark while 6 months pregnant, this was one of the many policies that I was looking forward to, having no idea that there could be anything negative about it.

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