Breast Feeding in Hospital.

andrealm

nickyhutch wrote: »

Let the hospital provide the food, but let them charge for it.

But will they provide food to non-patients even if they offer to pay for it?

nickyhutch

andrealm wrote: »

But will they provide food to non-patients even if they offer to pay for it?

I don't know - I guess not in this case, or that would have been offered to OP's daughter. I'm just saying that's how it should be.

BigBlackcat

But is there NO way your DD cannot provide food for herself? Microwave meals and noodles are not ideal, but they would do. Not all lactating mothers eat a healthy diet anyway. It very rarely affects the quality of the breastmilk, unless seriously malnourished.
I do sympathise with her plight, I really do. But it just seems like yet another "I'm entitled to...' post. Whatever happened to helping yourself? What happened to families helping each other? Because I'm breastfeeding I deserve special priviledges??! Guess what? NO you don't. When you have a child it's up to YOU to provide everything he/she needs. NOONE ELSE.
I really do wish your DD and baby all the best OP, but I can see where some other posters are coming from..

tiamai_d

BigBlackcat wrote: »

But is there NO way your DD cannot provide food for herself? Microwave meals and noodles are not ideal, but they would do. Not all lactating mothers eat a healthy diet anyway. It very rarely affects the quality of the breastmilk, unless seriously malnourished.
I do sympathise with her plight, I really do. But it just seems like yet another "I'm entitled to...' post. Whatever happened to helping yourself? What happened to families helping each other? Because I'm breastfeeding I deserve special priviledges??! Guess what? NO you don't. When you have a child it's up to YOU to provide everything he/she needs. NOONE ELSE.
I really do wish your DD and baby all the best OP, but I can see where some other posters are coming from..

So why do the NHS plough a fortune into healthy eating promotion then say it's ok for someone to eat crap for weeks?

It's about their being no facilities to choose a healthy meal, paid for or otherwise.

tarajayne

Why is it a I'm entitled to is so bad, if she was happy to pay for it? What happened to a little help along the way, and if run like a business the kitchens could use the income. It's a desperate situation, these parents are often in a great deal of shock. No-one wants a free ride just some options. This hospital has behaved appallingly, her OH begging for a Midwife to check her over and they was told she didn't come under them as she didn't give birth there. She travelled up with baby the morning after she was born, 2 days later he was so worried he took her up to the Maternity Ward, she was entitled to medical care I presume?

nickyhutch

tiamai_d wrote: »

So why do the NHS plough a fortune into healthy eating promotion then say it's ok for someone to eat crap for weeks?

It's about their being no facilities to choose a healthy meal, paid for or otherwise.

Because that fortune is spent on educating, not providing that healthy diet. You have to make the choice between a pot noodle and a good meal. Have one provided by the hospital (and pay for it), or have relatives/friends (you're not telling me a new mum has NO-ONE to bring stuff in) bring food in.

SugarSpun

nickyhutch wrote: »

have relatives/friends (you're not telling me a new mum has NO-ONE to bring stuff in) bring food in.

The NHS frequently sends infants - and adults - to hospitals far from their local one to ensure better care. Like the mother above who lives in Glasgow but is with her baby in Bristol. How's she supposed to have her relatives drop in home cooked food?

In any case, this discussion is irrelevant: the hospital has no facilities to enable parents to fend for themselves - no restaurant and only a dodgy pub a longish dark walk away, and a shop that is staffed by volunteers and irregularly open. Given the number of infants shipped in from elsewhere, they need an infrastructure in place to deal with parents, breastfeeding mothers or not. The breastfeeding aspect just makes it more urgent, because if the mother isn't fed her supply will suffer.

tiamai_d

nickyhutch wrote: »

Because that fortune is spent on educating, not providing that healthy diet. You have to make the choice between a pot noodle and a good meal. Have one provided by the hospital (and pay for it), or have relatives/friends (you're not telling me a new mum has NO-ONE to bring stuff in) bring food in.

Would you have friends and family enough to make a trip of over 100miles to bring you food? Every day for weeks? (the baby was 9? weeks early so we are talking 7-9weeks at least)

Most mums (new or otherwise) don't have that kind of support. And then with baby in SCBU needing fed every 2 hours a visitor would be making that trip in the hope that mum has time to pop out and see them because you are usually only allowed one visitor in the unit per day. 2 hour feeds do not mean 2 hours in between feeds, its from start to start, so if a feed takes 30mins plus the 15min for cares before that then add in 15mins for getting into and out of the unit, it's an hour between feeds. Presumably she then has to express milk too, so thats another 30mins pumping, washing equipment, refrigerating and labelling milk.



The whole point you are missing is that there is not the option to pay for food.

dangers

I know that this is not an ideal situation - could she find out whether the children's hospital still has a canteen and if she would be able to use that (think it used to be on level 2). It would be a few minutes walk from St Michaels, down at the bottom of the hill. As I say, I appreciate it is not ideal, but may be better than a pub. Hope the baby is ok

ceebeeby

OP - I wasn't going to post on this thread again due to my views differing so much from your own, and not wanting to cause you any greater stress at this time, however, your situation was still worrying me, and I might possibly have found something that will help.

According to St Michaels web-site, there are two small coffee shops in the Outpatient Department. I know this will only be open during 'day-time' hours, but is there a chance your DD could get down there and get a sandwich, fruit, cake etc.

Also, if you google "shops close to St Michaels Hospital, Bristol" it mentions that there's a Somerfields somewhere near (sorry, I don't know the area at all - it says 0.1mile, but that might not be accurate) and a fish and chip shop too.

Finally, my last thought was the WRVS - I know from experience, there is nothing more that the WRVS like to do, than to help. Is there any way possible you could get in touch with the WRVS team at St M's, and ask them if there is anything at all they could do about bringing in some sort of food for DD (i.e. if one of them is in Tesco, could they pick up a ready meal type thing that she could reimburse). I know this sounds bizarre, but I'm trying to work it from the point that if someone phoned me and said their child was hungry, lonely, afraid etc. and could I help ... personally I would.

I hope this may be a small bit of help to you.