Breastfeeding

I don't just do Pregnancy Prevention, 20 % of my job is a home visiting program called "Pregnancy & Parenting Support Services." Most of my clients are teen moms who are pregnant for the first time and need a support person to give them information, but I've worked with women with older children also. One of my clients had a baby on Monday. She had been adamant at our pre-natal meetings that she planned to breastfeed. We even attended a La Leche League(LLL) Meeting so that she could ask questions and meet the leaders before her son was born. I had hoped that this would help her feel more comfortable calling them for help if she had trouble after the birth.

I talked with her for the first time today by phone. We talked about some other things, then I asked how breastfeeding is going. She said not well, she's already using a bottle and it hurts when he latches on unless she uses a breast shield. I asked if she'd called anyone from WIC or LLL and she said she'd had TWO lactation consultants visit while she was in the hospital and one was rude and the other did not provide any help. She said she was going to talk to her doula about it as she is also a lactation consultant.

I am frustrated about 2 things. The first is that she was visited by lactation consultants in the hospital and they did not help her. Nursing should NOT hurt if it is being done right, how could these women not have helped her latch on properly? or scheduled a follow up if they saw that it wasn't working or SOMETHING! Their job is to make sure moms are successful at breastfeeding! This girl had a doula for goodness sake, if she can't get support, who can?

My other frustration is that I see this all the time. Girls are determined to breastfeed and when I talk to them after the birth they've already given up. What is happening? Are they being discouraged in the hospital? Are they failing to understand that it is difficult and just takes time for baby and mom to learn what they're doing? Something is not adding up. I am not much help, having never breastfed anyone, so when they call me all I can do is tell them to call a professional. But they don't. Not that I blame them, they've just had a baby for goodness sake, I know making phone calls is not at the top of the priority list. But why isn't the hospital taking better care of them?

A coworker that I complained to today had some great suggestions about teaming up with LLL to try to get postnatal check-ins scheduled before the birth instead of waiting for problems and expecting the frustrated moms to call. But I'm still frustrated.

This is a continuous problem and with each new client I try to be more firm in explaining how hard it is, I try to hook them up with the resources as early as possible, and the outcomes continue to be the same.