The hospital that I work at is in the process of becoming baby friendly, and I have some questions about how the baby friendly initiative is implemented in other hospitals.
I want to start by saying that I think that breastfeeding is a wonderful, healthy, mutually beneficial thing, but I wonder if the experience where I work is typical. If a patient says she intends to bottle feed, or a breastfeeding mother requests a bottle, we are supposed to try to persuade her to breastfeed. We've been given a script to follow that basically seems guilt inducing to me. We are supposed to use this script on everyone from a exclusively breastfeeding first time mother to a patient who has had her sixth baby and has supplemented every single child. I've had patient's tell me that they have asked for bottles and the previous nurse acted as though she didn't hear the question and some mothers actually crying and begging for bottles. I feel that my job is to help my patients do whatever it is that they want, not to guilt people into breastfeeding. I will go over the benefits of breastfeeding, how babies need to nurse frequently, how frequent nursing will encourage milk supply, I will tell my patients who want to supplement during the first 24 hours that it is not necessary, I will talk about baby's nutritional needs and stomach capacity . . . I will give my patients all the information I can, but I try to do it in an informative way. And this isn't good enough. If a patient is still requesting bottles, I don't feel that I should tell them no, but the next day our lactation consults are telling me (and other staff, too) that we should try harder and that we must be pushing formula. I will help my patients do whatever they want to do, but I refuse to tell them that formula is basically poison, which seems to be what the hospital wants.
I work at night and the other issue is the night time nursery. We are being asked to make our patients sign a waiver before their babies will be allowed in the nursery. The waiver lists an entire page of reasons why baby should room in and at the bottom it says something like "I would like my baby to be separated from me despite all of the benefits of rooming in. I give permission for my baby to go the nursery despite the fact that we will not receive the mutal benefits of rooming in." This form should only be given to parents once they've asked for their child to go to the nursery. I feel awful taking this waiver in to a sleep deprived woman with hormones surging through her body who has finally decided that it's okay to let us watch her baby between breastfeedings. There has to be a better way.
We have also been told that we will not be able to give out pacifiers even if parents ask for them in the near future. Pacifiers are only to be used for comfort during circumcisions and then thrown away.
For many people, they already feel guilty asking for a bottle or for the baby to go to the nursery. I don't really know what to say to parents who are literally so exhausted that they can't keep their eyes open or patients who have had the baby to breast so much that their nipples are so tender that they are crying. Since we've started going through the baby friendly process, we've had more babies dropped during the night, babies in bed with mothers--I found one baby half hanging off the bed next to it's mother's knees, and one completely covered with the blankets over its face next to its snoring mother. These situations are not typical, but we have been noticing that they are happening more and more frequently.
I don't think that formula and mandatory night nursery are the answer either, I feel that my patients are adults who should have the ability to make informed decisions. I would like to know what other nurses experiences with baby friendly are. I feel like the my hospital is taking it a bit far and that breastfeeding has become more important than anything else, it's almost become as if lactation services have more power (for lack of a better word) than anyone else, and the relationship between the LC's and the nurses has become so adversarial, to the point where they are telling our management that we are collecting the babies every night and taking them to the nursery to feed them bottles. Actually, it's easier for me if the baby is in the mother's room and she and dad are caring for the baby and feeding him or her and changing the diapers . . . the nursery isn't for my convenience, and most of my coworkers have this same opinion.
Anyway, I'm sorry this is so long, and I thank anyone who reads all my rambling and gives me some opinions and advice.
