When my son was born, I looked for a pediatrician in the town where he lived. Everyone spoke very well of her. I cannot say that I did not know about illnesses, although my son was never ill during the year I went to his office, but I can say that her attitude towards breastfeeding was of total ignorance or bad faith.
After the interviews I have done at the IBCLC Ana Charfén I have been remembering everything that, throughout that year, he told me.
My conclusion is that pediatricians are the professionals who must treat childhood illnesses but, if we talk about parenting or breastfeeding, we must be very suspicious and know that we may be harmed by their irresponsible outdated (it is irresponsible not to be updated ) or for your obsolete ideas.
Pediatricians and lactation
The bottom line would be to ask if we can trust pediatricians when talking about breastfeeding. And my answer is: it depends on what they say.
There are wonderful pediatricians and pediatricians who are true wise, pediatricians who support breastfeeding and others who are also researchers and great connoisseurs of the breastfeeding process. But there are others who do not. If one of the seconds touches you, seek a second opinion, because that may depend on whether or not you can breastfeed your children.
You have to know how to distinguish them. Yes The pediatric He insists that the child does not gain enough weight if he is not in the 50th percentile, it is already a sign to be prevented. If you insist on feeding “industrial” complementary food after four months, be warned.
And in some cases, with a single phrase you can already detect that something is not going well with your breastfeeding training. If you want the baby to sleep alone and not breastfeed at night, find another pediatrician. If he tells you that the tit goes after the porridge, of course, he doesn't know how to breastfeed a little. If he says that you have to give the tit every three hours and only ten minutes, maximum alert, he knows nothing about anything. If he says that from the year the tit does not feed, urgently, ask for the change.
If I had listened to him I would never have been able to connect my baby (born prematurely and who was discharged early with less than two kilos), nor could I have been breastfeeding when we started complementary feeding, nor would I have been breastfeeding when I started work , nor would I have had milk beyond the first year of life. And of course I would never have breastfed until natural weaning years later.
It was not my pediatrician who helped me keep breastfeeding. It was my will, the readings on the internet and the support of the lactation consultants of the La Leche League, especially from a call Lavinia Belli who helped me, advised me and offered me real information about breastfeeding. If I had listened to my pediatrician I would not "have had milk."
What my pediatrician knew about breastfeeding
I will leave you a list with everything he told me throughout that year. You yourself draw your conclusions.
- Artificial milk is as good as what you haveIn addition, your milk is very clear, it is watery. And he recommended a specific brand.
- Premature babies cannot drink only breast milk Even if you take it out and even if you gain a good weight. You always have to supplement with a bottle. Put it, if you want, a little to the chest at the end of the bottle to see if it grabs you. Fortunately I ignored him, I kept spending the day and night with the baby on my chest and taking out milk, although if I supplemented with a bottle of artificial milk.
- You can't spend so much time with the baby in the chest. When after two months and after enormous efforts the baby related and fed only my milk, I spent almost an hour sucking and asking continuously. But she told me not to give her more than 10 minutes on each breast and every three hours so she doesn't get tied. If I had listened to him I would never have had enough milk.
- Don't get milk at work, is a waste of absurd time. Of course, I ignored his comment, I was already seeing that every time I talked about breastfeeding I sabotaged, I can't think of anything else. I started working, 4 hours, when the baby was 5 months old and took the breast pump to work.
- The tit ALWAYS after the meal and nothing to give it between hours. The fundamental thing is that you make your four meals of porridge daily and two of them, industrial cereals with artificial milk.
- The cereals have to be the pot and give them with artificial milk or you will be feeding your child. Giving it cooked rice and breast milk is a huge job and besides, you give it less food.
- He gave me samples of everything, what is not ethical and violates regulations that she must know.
- Four months later, Civil. In his paper of norms he recommended the book and clear guidelines.
- At night at four months you have to stop breastfeeding. If he cries and nothing happens, you give him water and sleep.
- A year breast milk It is not worth anything, it is water. The important thing is to drink half a liter of canister milk.
- Colechar is not good for your sex life (I wonder what that lady cared about my sex life) and is harmful to the child.
- You cannot breastfeed with mastitis because you pass the infection to the child and you cannot breastfeed while taking this antibiotic. Thanks to the e-lactation page and the wonderful doctor Jose María Paricio, I found out that it was perfectly compatible.
My pediatrician and breastfeeding: ignorance or bad faith?
Come on, a very good pediatrician sure is, but breastfeeding had no ideto. I must say that I did not know anything about breastfeeding when my son was born, it was thanks to seek information to contrast his strange advice as I learned.
Fortunately in this town there is now a breastfeeding support association, Mama Luna and several wonderful pediatricians, one that is even IBCLC. Hopefully the moms no longer have, thanks to them, to pass what I went through.
In a way I should be grateful. My pediatrician, with his advice on breastfeeding, I don't know if they were due to ignorance or bad faithThey managed to make me almost an expert in the field and that I could breastfeed my son as long as we wanted.
