When a couple with a baby of a few days goes to the pediatrician for the first time and the nurse is usually full of doubts and there usually receives many answers and advice. In order to make it easy, many professionals deliver summary sheets, with the most important advice to keep in mind, to avoid coming home and say: "Do you remember how you told us to do it?"
Those leaves have a lot of power. I myself give some in the consultation, especially when giving guidelines for food or safety at home. The problem is that the recommendations tend to change over time, and in many cases neither pediatricians nor nurses are recycled, not even the leaves change. Then what should not happen, that you go to the health center in 2014 to promote the health of your baby and answer questions and leave with a sheet that looks like 1970, with tips that easily they can end in a few hours or days with breastfeeding. Keep reading and you will see two recent examples.
Case # 1: do it like this, and if you're doing badly, baby bottle
A few days ago I saw on Facebook, on the wall of the Mímame Center, in Salamanca, the photo of one of the aforementioned sheets given by one of her clients, which was given to her when she left the hospital, having her baby 24 hours old .
As you can read, only two tips are given to the mother, the two most important. First, "will put the chest a maximum of ten minutes between them" and the second "If you need to supplement with Nidina Premium-1 every three hours", followed by the basic instructions for preparing a bottle.
We all know, that we have spoken here many times, that breastfeeding is given at the request of the baby and that the time to be breastfed is determined by the baby, not the mother, or the father, much less the pediatrician or Nurse with her outdated sheet. Ten minutes between both breasts is very probably a short time, too little for a baby to just take a shot. Luckily, thankfully, it does not say what the frequency of the shots is, although the three hours of the bottle can make mothers pay attention to that frequency.
What happens then? Well, if a mother breastfeeds every 3 hours, 10 minutes maximum, the baby you will be hungry for sure. If the mother has a little instinct and says that "this child is hungry, I give it more often," fixed. If instead he blindly trusts what he says on that sheet and believes that the advice is correct, he will think that "I don't have enough milk, or don't feed, and he's going hungry." Then she will go to the next line and, between her baby's tears and her feeling of helplessness, will tell her husband to go to the pharmacy and bring a can of Nidina Premium-1.
That is another. Why Nidina? Why not another? Because the commercials of the different brands come to see me and everyone tells me that theirs is the best, so when a mother asks me I say that: "Everyone tells me that theirs is the best, so buy whatever you like. " We are nobody to marry any brand, so we should not do it. Do not, unless there are interests behind, that there could be, because brands often offer pediatricians conferences, courses and similar things. As in everything, it is up to the pediatrician to accept or not accept those invitations, or in their hands to be influenced by those invitations (because I know some who take the opportunity to go to congresses and courses but then advise what they think, or nothing in concrete).
Case nº2: return to the past, which The Beatles play
The second case is a sheet published by the pediatrician Amalia Arce on Twitter yesterday (she has also talked about it), which is also given to mothers of newborn babies and is a compendium of nonsense, myths and erroneous advice. Come on, I wouldn't use it to set it on fire on a lost winter day on an island, just in case it was cold instead of heat.
If you look, it says that "Breast milk is the best food for the newborn. During the first days of the baby, the schedule of the tetadas should be flexible, approximately every 3 hours, and when breastfeeding is well established it can be done every 4 hours, that is 6 times a day". It starts well, with the flexible schedule, but then it becomes rigid, giving as an ideal time about 3 hours, advice that then spoils even more by saying that when everything goes well, it happens every four hours. No, breastfeeding is on demand and, as we have often said, the frequency should be marked by the baby because breast milk is digested in 90 minutes, an hour and a half. What the hell does a baby do the remaining hour and a half, or the remaining two and a half hours? Will parents think that he cries because he has colic when all he has is hunger?
Then the thing continues, and worsens:
The technique is to offer both breasts (10 minutes) starting with the last of the previous teat. It is important to do it in a how and relaxed posture. Care should be taken to wash the breasts previously with boiled water and sterile gauze. The baby should be calm between shots and progress from the 4th day of life at a rate of 25-30 grams, or 200 grams per week.
He says you have to offer both breasts, but this is a "depends", there are mothers who have enough breastfeeding and there are mothers who do offer two. And it depends, not on the mother or the council, but of the baby. The 10 minutes, as the same as the previous case, an absurdity. And the breasts wash the same, totally outdated. I am a mother, I have to do that, and I almost feel like giving up a bottle. No, you don't have to boil water or clean anything with sterile gauze. Then they tell you that you have to be calm between shots and gain 25 to 30 grams per day, something that a baby will hardly achieve if she breastfeeds every 3-4 hours for 10 minutes. That is, they offer some tips to achieve weight gain and tranquility in the baby that will hardly be given. Outcome: The end of breastfeeding.
Finally, as if the council were from the Beatles era, it says:
After each teat try to make the burp; if it is not achieved, it must be placed in the cradle upside down, with its head tilted and the cradle slightly raised.
Surprising because it does not clarify if it is a few minutes or if it is for you to sleep in that position. A few days ago we commented that a third of the parents put their babies to sleep at risk of sudden death, by not putting them in the right position, which is face up with head tilted. With such advice, it is logical that parents end up doing it wrong.
After the section on breastfeeding, on paper, comes the artificial breastfeeding, which many mothers who follow the advice of breastfeeding will inevitably come, since "It can be started if weight loss, excessive crying and overt hypogalactia persist after the first few days". Again, notice how quickly and with what little effort can a pediatrician and / or a nurse end breastfeeding.
If they deliver these papers, what won't they say 'in situ'
Of course, they give you a paper of these, like washing your hands in a plan "don't come, the paper says it all" and a mother does not go. And if for whatever reason, imagine what advice you can get. The same as the paper says or worse. So with these professionals, a nursing mother with problems has a very difficult time to carry out her breastfeeding. Luckily today there is information on many other sites, whether internet, whether in support groups, or asking a breastfeeding mother who can tell that mother that "they are giving you advice that smell like mothballs ". But you know, there are parents who blindly trust the pediatrician and that what he says goes to mass.
They gave me a similar sheet 2 years ago, when Guim was born. I don't remember it clearly, but I also said how to prepare the bottle if the child went hungry and with the tit didn't have enough, and added that, if he had gas, we would give him Blevit Digest, that infusion that is all sugar with a little chamomile and fennel that I would never recommend because, neither is necessary, nor seems to me the best remedy. At the time it didn't bother me too much because we weren't going to follow the directions, but I do remember feeling upset about the "handwashing". Something like "you breastfeed, which is the best, and if it goes wrong, give it a bottle, which is the solution that I will give you equally if you come to see me for such an insignificant problem."
It bothered me how they bother these two sheets commented today because many women have problems with breastfeeding, sometimes important and sometimes easy to solve, that are resolved with knowledge, with patience or with information. Sometimes it is as simple as explaining it, sometimes the shot is observed and you realize that there is a bad grip, sometimes there is a hypogalactia because the mother's hormones have been "removed" and with an analytical you verify it, sometimes ... but of course, for that you have to know, you have to have recycled. If you have not done so, then you have no choice but to deliver a sheet that says "if it does not come out, give a bottle." A pity The good thing is that the years pass, more and more we are talking about these sheets and these mistakes and there are more and more nurses and pediatricians willing to help mothers. The bad? That while these tips continue to exist, many children and many mothers will cry for not achieving successful breastfeeding.
