frustrated with doctors (comments from doctors and othe health professionals welcome)

Laura Zoey - posted on 05/23/2010

Aap does say that even if mom is smoking it is healthier to breastfeed then to give formula. Yes it us better not to smoke but even a smokers breastmilk is BETER then the leading formula!!!!!

Michelle - posted on 05/23/2010

Stanford University Medical Center, where I delivered, has a great breastfeeding program for mom's in the maternity ward & offer classes each day.

The nurses strongly encourage skin-to-skin, and even suggest it to the dad's as a good way for them to bond too.

It really depends on the facility & the medical professionals own personal opinion, which so greatly varies from person to person.

Angie - posted on 05/22/2010

It does bother me. I sought out a pediatrician who is also a LC so thankfully she is very well versed in bfing but not all drs are. My understanding is a dr actually receives very little actual training in medical school on breastfeeding and if they want the knowledge they have to go searching for it or a few get lucky and get to work residency or internship with a pro bfing doc.

My little sister just graduated nursing school and she was educating the class on breastfeeding (thanks to her super pro breastfeeding older sister she is now very knowledgable). Her instructor was giving out very poor information apparantly and she would call me for the correct statistics to pass along.

It's frustrating but the best thing to do is arm yourself with the knowledge.

Rachel - posted on 05/22/2010

I'm aggrivated with my pediatrician. After she checked Brady out she said well hes almost 9 months so your almost done with the breastfeeding.I replied well I was told by the lc @ wic that the new reccomendation was 3 years. I'm okay with it...I'm just goin with the flow. when I'm ready or he is ready to stop I'll stop. and she said no...just give him regular milk out of a sippy cup. not to mention the pedi before that perscribed formula for the first 2 weeks while i was just trying to establish breastfeeding. that resulted in blisters all over my nipples. and i later found out she had breastfed her child for 18 months!!!!! I trust the women on circle of moms before the pedi when it comes to breastfeeding questions.

Erin - posted on 05/22/2010

About the only advice from the doctors referred to in your post that I agree with is no smoking, drinking alcohol, or consuming caffeine while nursing. You just shouldn't smoke, period, and having a child is an excellent excuse/motivator to quit. Ever heard of the effects of "third-hand" smoking? (The residues from smoking get onto/into everything, and are just as harmful.) You shouldn't drink tons of alcohol or consume lots of caffeine while nursing because it will get transmitted through in your breastmilk, and baby's body is a lot tinier than yours (meaning even though a little bit doesn't have a huge effect on you, it WILL on your little one...you weigh more, duh!)

Other than that, the rest of what your docs have said is a bunch of baloney.

April - posted on 05/21/2010

if i am lucky enough to have another baby, i won't be going to a doctor. i will choose a midwife and a doula and i am intending to have this baby either at home or at a birthing center..NOT a hospital.

i won't let anyone know i am in labor because i know certain family members will try to get me to go to a hospital. i'll be pretending i'm not in pain long enough to make sure this baby is born naturally, in the water in my home.

Sara - posted on 05/21/2010

My pediatrician is, fortunately, very pro-BFing, and was very supportive of my choice. My daughter gained really quickly after she was born (as many BF infants do), but then as she got a little older (4-6 months or so) she settled into a steady growth curve that was BELOW the 50th%. I was very grateful that my pediatrician was educated enough to say: The growth charts are based on formula fed babies, who tend to weigh more... so as long as she's staying true to HER trend and she's healthy, I'm happy.
I'm sure that LOTS of mothers have been pressured to supplement because their babies weren't growing on the same growth curve as the formula fed babies in the US earlier in the century.

Jessie - posted on 05/21/2010

Hi. I am a young mom and when I got pregnant I decided I wanted a midwife right away. This was because I felt I'd have more of the options and support that I wanted regarding breastfeeding, skin to skin, and pain control during labor. The midwives I worked with were awesome but I also learned a lot from reading. The Womanly Art of Breastfeeding taught me so much! I don't know if you have time now with your little one to read it all but even as a quick look-it-up book it is awesome. Gaining your own knowledge about pregnancy and everything after is the best way to protect yourself against bad advice from doctors, midwives or well-meaning people. It sounds like you're doing an awesome job with your little one. Good luck and congrats!

http://www.amazon.ca/Womanly-Art-Breastf...

Sylvie - posted on 05/21/2010

Wow, you would think doctors would want to educate themselves on breastfeeding. Especially if they're in nursery. What ever happended to what nature, and what the breast is intended for. And what people from 3rd world countries do, they could learn a thing or 2 from them. And skin to skin is so important, keeps them warm, close to you as they've been for 9months, and safe.
Where I'm from, breastfeeding is very incouraged, if not pushed. And we have a great breastfeeding nurse that meets up with all mothers twice before the baby's born, then once in the hospital and are given lots of info and contact ph# if help is needed at anytime.

So frustrating to hear these stories.

Simone - posted on 05/20/2010

i feel real sorry for you mum's i other countries having to rely on uninformed doctors. In New Zealand we have a midwife (unless you specify to have a doctor) follow us through out our pregnancy and there for the birth, which is great having a trusted face by your side. She then does weekly house visits for 6wks checking on baby and mum, also giving councelling if needed and really helping with breastfeeding etc. You then go onto the Plunket, all trained nurses specialising in baby care. They will do house or clinic visits at babies ages 3,6,10,15,24mths up untill they are 5 (i think). they take care of all baby stuff checking they are on the right track and answer any issues you have. very pro breastfeeding but have no issues with formular feeding either. You can alo just pop into the clinics if you have ANY probs and they do workshops on sleep, introducing solids etc. i have found them to be so important and feel sad that its a very under funded service.

Jennifer - posted on 05/20/2010

I get frustrated, too. My pediatrician is horribly against breastfeeding. He wanted me to stop when my son was 9 months old! He said the only reason my son gets up several times a night was to breastfeed. How does he know? Maybe my son wants cuddled, too.

Mary - posted on 05/20/2010

I think a lot depends on where a doctor trains. I had the wonderful experience of working with a pro-breastfeeding pediatrician while rotating on the normal newborn service during my residency. She tried her best to get more moms to think about breastfeeding. From our side, the problem was we didn't see the babies until after they were born and a lot of moms had made up their minds already. In the Children's hospital there is a breastfeeding clinic to provide support to families who are breastfeeding, and among the residents there was a pro-breastfeeding culture (we had a special fridge just for those who were pumping and working). I practice child psychiatry, but I guess that experience had a big impact on my own parenting. I never thought about doing anything other than breastfeeding. When there was a scare about contaminants in formula a few years ago it solidified my desire to breastfeed even more. That said, I know there are some people it doesn't work out for, and it's good that there are alternatives. Although I don't think I had enough pediatrics training in breastfeeding problems per se, I guess I'm lucky that I at least got exposed to the field, and the fact that there is help if there are problems with the process. I am also lucky that most of the moms I work with have at the very least pumped for a little while, so I have felt that I have had good support.

And now, we are 2 weeks away from reaching the one year goal for breastfeeding my daughter! She doesn't show signs of wanting to give up, so I'm just going to see what happens.

Celeste, I thought that article was great.

Celeste - posted on 05/20/2010

I understand your frustration!

When my twin boys were born, I expressed to the pediatrician that I wanted to breastfeed. She went on a tirade saying that she saw sick breastfed babies all the time, that her daughter wasn't breastfed and she's at the top of her class, and that none of her twin moms breastfed. At our check ups, she'd tell me that breastfeeding was too much of a hassle and kept giving me samples of formula (which I gave to friends who FF'ed). Her hand outs included terrible breastfeeding advice as well. So, I quit her and through my friend who's an IBCLC, found an excellent pro breastfeeding doctor.

It really does bother me that many medical professionals aren't educated about breastfeeding. I wonder how many mothers my previous pedi has sabotaged.

Speaking of which, I have an article that I'll post that addresses this very issue.

Kathy - posted on 05/19/2010

It seems to me that the Australian medical profession is pretty well up on breastfeeding information, compared to the US. Our government now has endorsed a policy of encouraging breastfeeding, and follows the Baby-friendly Hospitals Initiative.

It has taken a long time, and it was a grass-roots movement to encourage this growth. The organisation formerly called the Nursing Mothers' Association of Australia, now called the Australian Breastfeeding Association, was largely instrumental in bringing this change about.I'm proud to say I was part of this movement to promote breastfeeding and breastfeeding education. I was one of those "radicals" who breastfed their babies for years. I studied to become a Breastfeeding Counsellor, in the process discovering all sorts of facts and information that the medical profession just did not know. Everything we did, wverything we said was backed up by research, and we had some very highly thought-of professionals to back us. Lots of health professionals joined us.

It's a long story, but the main point is that it started as a grass-roots movement, and I think that's the best way to get things moving.

Here is a brief history:
http://www.breastfeeding.asn.au/aboutaba...

I'm not certain of what sort of breastfeeding support you have in the US, but I get the impression that la Leche League has similar aims., and I would tend to prefer their information over a doctor's information.

Emily - posted on 05/19/2010

It absolutely bothers me too. From what I've heard, a lot of nursing programs also do not give a lot of real info about breastfeeding. It's very sad to me.

Kristin - posted on 05/19/2010

When we lived in Oregon and had out first boy, the doctors and nurses there were very well educated and supportive of breasstfeeding and kangaroo care (skin to skin) as much as possible with both parents. It made those first weeks really kind of wonderful and strange all at the same time.

In Texas, when we were there my OB and the pediatrician we had chosen were very supportive of both breastfeeding and kangaroo care. What I found strange was the nurses in L&D were adamant about using the baby warmers over kangaroo care and seemed shocked by my wanting to BF within the first hour.

I'm curious to see how it goes where we live now. I've let my OB know what I want, so who knows.

I really think it serves us parents well to do the research ourselves and go into our appointments armed with knowledge. There is a frightful lot of antiquated and misinformation out there. Even our newer medical pro's are taught old practices. But when you go in with newer info and reputable studies, they will look into and learn about what you want.

I'm sorry you've got such odd doc's where you are. Good luck.

Malia - posted on 05/19/2010

Hi, Erin. For some reason, they're not including real-world facts in all the medical textbooks. For example, at my 6-week postpartum checkup a couple of months ago, a male resident told me that I couldn't get pregnant while I was breastfeeding. He started to share a detailed explanation, but stopped when he saw the expression on my face. When my doctor and I told him that you can, he said, "That's not what the textbook said..."
Fortunately both my ob/gyn and pediatrician are women with children of their own, so they're more knowledgeable about what really happens after we take the baby home from the hospital. You've inspired me; I think I'll be paying a visit to their website and making a few recommendations.