Way to go Portland! Hopefully, every city throughout the U.S. will follow the wonderful example being set here. Sending home parents (especially 1st time parents) with formula offers parents an easy way out and only encourages mothers who are having difficulty with breastfeeding to give up and resort to formula. Instead of providing families with formula, hospitals should provide them with as much lactation support as they need in order to establish a successful nursing relationship with their babies. My husband and I can't say enough wonderful things about our birth experience at UCLA where our son was born but we could have used a lot more one-on-one time with a lactation specialist or LLL representative. We struggled through 3 long months of failed attempts at nursing, constant pumping and yes (gasp!) formula before Max finally got the hang of it (shout out to Susan Orr for working her breastfeeding mojo on us). I'm happy to say that those 3 months were well worth it - our son is perfect! He is healthy, happy and still nursing at 19 months old.
2 comments:
Way to go Portland! Hopefully, every city throughout the U.S. will follow the wonderful example being set here. Sending home parents (especially 1st time parents) with formula offers parents an easy way out and only encourages mothers who are having difficulty with breastfeeding to give up and resort to formula. Instead of providing families with formula, hospitals should provide them with as much lactation support as they need in order to establish a successful nursing relationship with their babies. My husband and I can't say enough wonderful things about our birth experience at UCLA where our son was born but we could have used a lot more one-on-one time with a lactation specialist or LLL representative. We struggled through 3 long months of failed attempts at nursing, constant pumping and yes (gasp!) formula before Max finally got the hang of it (shout out to Susan Orr for working her breastfeeding mojo on us). I'm happy to say that those 3 months were well worth it - our son is perfect! He is healthy, happy and still nursing at 19 months old.
Ruth Wilson
Torrance, CA
Ruth,
So, so proud of you! It is so worth it!
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