During our hospital stay we meet with a lactation consultant. The woman, who is also a nurse, warns us not to put anything, ANYTHING, into Liam's mouth that isn't M.'s breasts. Period. No pacifiers, no bottles, no fingers, no exceptions. After all, we wouldn't want to create dreaded nipple confusion, now would we?
Later that day, in walks our new pediatrician. And what's the first thing this man does? He quiets a fussy Liam by sticking his finger into his mouth! Holy areola perplexity, Batman! What's going on here?
Fast forward to our first day home. A nurse comes by to check on everyone. Well, except me, of course - no one gives a crap about how dad's doing. But I digress.
Anyway, she gives M. the once over and checks out Liam. With M., she's concerned about what may be the beginnings of an infection of her episiotomy. Yikes! Also, she thinks that M.'s not producing enough milk because Liam's lost 8% of his birth weight. Being first-timers, we're panicked.
As soon as the door closes behind Nurse Badnews we whip up a big bottle of formula for Liam. Nipple confusion be damned! I can't have the kid starve for God's sake.
Next, M. places a call to her obstetrician but she's not in. However, M.'s put through to one of the doctor's colleagues. A discussion ensues wherein M. describes what the the nurse said. After a few questions the doctor says that everything going on is normal and to be expected - an infection is highly unlikely. Hmm...
M. and I decide not to take any chances on the breast milk issue - after all, the kid pounded the bottle I give him like a meathead on spring break - and we schedule an appointment in a few days time with a lactation consultant at DayOne. During the interim, I continue to give Liam a bottle once a day to keep him from starving to death and M. dutifully keeps trying to get milk from her stones.
We head over to DayOne to meet with the Executive Director who also happens to be the lactation consultant. While we're waiting M. strikes up a conversation with some women hanging out there with their little ones. She relates our plight and admits that we've introduced the bottle in light of the concerns aroused by our visiting nurse. One woman gives her a look like we just told her that we've been feeding the kid raw beef. "A bottle? You cretins!"
Pardon my French, but WTF, lady? I'm all for breast-feeding, being a lactivist, and all that stuff, but who the hell do you think you are? Hello? We're concerned that the kid is starving. Luckily, M. doesn't tell me about the exchange until after the fact. Had I witnessed it firsthand I might have snapped and used the nearest bottle to give that woman a special episiotomy of my own. But I digress.
We finally meet with the lactation lady. We tell her our concerns and fess up about the bottles. To my surprise and relief she doesn't have us immediately drawn and quartered. She proceeds to ask M. a few questions. She weighs Liam and then observes M. feed him. After about a minute she looks at us and declares that if there were some kind of platinum star award for breast-feeding, M. and Liam would get it. Huh? What the?
Liam is fine. His weight is fine. His latching is fine. He finishes feeding quickly because M.'s got fast flow equipment and the kid can suck it back like a sailor on leave. The visiting nurse didn't know what she was talking about, plain and simple. And the bottle? We're told it's much ado about nothing. Apparently about 20% of infants experience some form of nipple confusion and much of the hullabaloo on the topic stems from this group of losers, err, I mean, babies. (Just jokes, people. Just jokes.) Liam, we're assured, is quite obviously not a twenty percenter. Bottle, nipple, whatever. The kid is fine.
Because of this whole experience I've decided to take future baby-related advice with big grains of salt. That being said, I do believe that our pediatrician and the ED from DayOne know what they're talking about.
One thing's for sure, though. I intend to starting listing much more intently to the person who really knows what the score is on all this stuff - my son.
Comments