Baby Bargains thread

ScarletRaven

Anne_Marie wrote: »

A bit harsh, when someone is only giving out information and trying to help. Some mums may not be able to afford expensive creams for themselves, and would rather lavish their money on feeding the family and caring for their baby. Surely it makes more sense to go to see a doctor about such things, than buy something over the counter, which may or may not work?

I'm with you on this. I'm currently pregnant, with about 10 weeks to go, and am really hoping to breastfeed for various reasons (healthier, cheaper, etc). If something happens that causes me discomfort or an infection, I would go to my midwife/doc about it, as I can't afford up to a tenner on the treatment that would work best.

I have no job, and receive no benefits other than housing (which only covers half the rent anyways). I wouldn't give up what's best for me and my baby if I could get a solution to the problem in a free prescription (which I'd be entitled to until my child is 1 year old anyway!).

£6-10 could go towards a much-needed grocery bill that would be feeding 3 of us; it would be difficult to spare that for nipple cream if I had to make the choice between that and cutting off a quarter of our food budget for the week.

eccles-cake

Thanks for your comments Anne_Marie & ScarletRaven

To be honest i'd spent a small fortune on so-called 'nipple creams', only to find they didn't work and to add insult you had to wipe cream off before feeding! I hadn't discovered lansinoh and if it weren't for my prescription i'd have not known about this miracle stuff and probably had to stop feeding.
Best of luck with the bfing Scarlet, I'm due with no.2 in 7wks, cream at the ready!

Anne_Marie_2

Congratulations ScarletRaven. Hope that all goes well for you. A baby is a precious gift, and a cracked nipple or two, is nothing compared to a baby's smile. Hope that you do manage to breastfeed, but if you can't, don't beat yourself up about it. It matters not, as long as you have a healthy baby, that's all that matters.

lollyb84

ScarletRaven wrote: »

I'm with you on this. I'm currently pregnant, with about 10 weeks to go, and am really hoping to breastfeed for various reasons (healthier, cheaper, etc). If something happens that causes me discomfort or an infection, I would go to my midwife/doc about it, as I can't afford up to a tenner on the treatment that would work best.

I have no job, and receive no benefits other than housing (which only covers half the rent anyways). I wouldn't give up what's best for me and my baby if I could get a solution to the problem in a free prescription (which I'd be entitled to until my child is 1 year old anyway!).

£6-10 could go towards a much-needed grocery bill that would be feeding 3 of us; it would be difficult to spare that for nipple cream if I had to make the choice between that and cutting off a quarter of our food budget for the week.

It's a tricky one though. Without going into the politics of it, which are irrelevant to this particular point, the nhs budget is already hugely over stretched as it is, without putting additonal pressure on it for things such as this. I do appreciate that there are some people who simply don't have the money to afford 'luxuries' such as nipple cream.

However, I would argue that should you not use the cream, and find you have to give up breast feeding because its too painful, formula would cost a larger chunk of your weekly food budget. My 12 week old goes through a tin every 10 days or so at just under a tenner a tin. I breast fed for 8 weeks, and used 1.5 tubes of cream. Towards the end, it was much less painful (the first 2 weeks were the worst) and so I probably could've used less, I just kept going with it for the sake of it really.

If you are really struggling with money to the extent that spending this amount on cream would cause you hardship then I can see a case for the nhs helping out. But I think what notanewuser was trying to say (and apologies if I'm putting words in your mouth) was that there is a air of the nhs covering everything (not necessarily from anyone specific on here, just a feeling I get when I talk to other people sometimes). For example, when I had given birth, I was given a prescription for 2 lots of painkillers before I left hospital. One of them was for paracetamol. Now I wouldn't like to say how much a box of paracetamol costs the nhs, but I would think its probably more than the 15/20p I can pay in my local shop for a box. I
Paracetamol doesn't require a prescription to buy it, so why did I get a prescription for it?

amus

Well I've had gaviscon on prescription with all my pregnancies, and will continue to request it as I go through litres of the stuff when pregnant.

lollyb84

eccles-cake wrote: »

Thanks for your comments Anne_Marie & ScarletRaven

To be honest i'd spent a small fortune on so-called 'nipple creams', only to find they didn't work and to add insult you had to wipe cream off before feeding! I hadn't discovered lansinoh and if it weren't for my prescription i'd have not known about this miracle stuff and probably had to stop feeding.
Best of luck with the bfing Scarlet, I'm due with no.2 in 7wks, cream at the ready!

I do agree re the creams on the market that don't work! I was fortunate that someone recommended lansinoh to me while I was pregnant, and that saved me a small fortune in trying others! Which I also understand means that if your struggling for money already, buying things that don't work only adds to the problem.

Congrats to you both on your babies, and I hope all goes well.

amus

lollyb84 wrote: »

It's a tricky one though. Without going into the politics of it, which are irrelevant to this particular point, the nhs budget is already hugely over stretched as it is, without putting additonal pressure on it for things such as this. I do appreciate that there are some people who simply don't have the money to afford 'luxuries' such as nipple cream.

However, I would argue that should you not use the cream, and find you have to give up breast feeding because its too painful, formula would cost a larger chunk of your weekly food budget. My 12 week old goes through a tin every 10 days or so at just under a tenner a tin. I breast fed for 8 weeks, and used 1.5 tubes of cream. Towards the end, it was much less painful (the first 2 weeks were the worst) and so I probably could've used less, I just kept going with it for the sake of it really.

If you are really struggling with money to the extent that spending this amount on cream would cause you hardship then I can see a case for the nhs helping out. But I think what notanewuser was trying to say (and apologies if I'm putting words in your mouth) was that there is a air of the nhs covering everything (not necessarily from anyone specific on here, just a feeling I get when I talk to other people sometimes). For example, when I had given birth, I was given a prescription for 2 lots of painkillers before I left hospital. One of them was for paracetamol. Now I wouldn't like to say how much a box of paracetamol costs the nhs, but I would think its probably more than the 15/20p I can pay in my local shop for a box. I
Paracetamol doesn't require a prescription to buy it, so why did I get a prescription for it?

TBH the discussion of how to allocate nhs funds is probably better suited to DT rather than grabbit, if people want to have an in depth discussion about it here is not the place. What I will say is having a discussion about the ethics of prescriptions on the nhs is a bit of a shaky topic, why should somebody be berated for having a tube of nipple cream, which for all the other poster knows is the only ailment somebody has ever had a prescription for, when there could be another person due to poor lifestyle using thousands of pounds in nhs resorces. Like I said, shaky ground IMO.

Anne_Marie_2

eccles-cake wrote: »

Thanks for your comments Anne_Marie & ScarletRaven

To be honest i'd spent a small fortune on so-called 'nipple creams', only to find they didn't work and to add insult you had to wipe cream off before feeding! I hadn't discovered lansinoh and if it weren't for my prescription i'd have not known about this miracle stuff and probably had to stop feeding.
Best of luck with the bfing Scarlet, I'm due with no.2 in 7wks, cream at the ready!

No problem Eccles-cake. Congratulations to you too, wish you all the very best with no. 2 baby.

lollyb84

amus wrote: »

TBH the discussion of how to allocate nhs funds is probably better suited to DT rather than grabbit, if people want to have an in depth discussion about it here is not the place. What I will say is having a discussion about the ethics of prescriptions on the nhs is a bit of a shaky topic, why should somebody be berated for having a tube of nipple cream, which for all the other poster knows is the only ailment somebody has ever had a prescription for, when there could be another person due to poor lifestyle using thousands of pounds in nhs resorces. Like I said, shaky ground IMO.

Fair point, and I accept the allocation of nhs resources is always going to be a difficult decision for the govt to make and a controversial topic, and the rules (as with anything national) are never going to be completely fair to everyone - there will unfortunately always be cases where someone in genuine need is denied something, and someone else is given something that other people may consider they don't 'deserve'. I'm not wishing to berate those in genuine need who have got a tube of the cream on prescription, as I said - I can see a case where there is genuine hardship.

I also take your point re DT, and so shall say no more! but thanks for the debate - always good to hear other points of view and have my opinions challenged, as we all come at these things from our own experiences.

notanewuser

Apologies for the slight rant. They're trying to close the maternity and special care baby units at my local hospital, which will mean mothers in labour being transported for up to an hour to alternative hospitals. This is because of pressures put on the NHS budgets. Here in Wales prescriptions are free and it boils my blood how much people squeeze out of it. A local woman almost had to be airlifted 400 miles to Scotland to have her twins because there aren't enough SCBU beds and they think closing a unit is the right answer.

In basic terms, mothers and babies could die because people aren't prepared to pay for OTC medicines themselves. I had horrific heartburn with DD - I should have had shares in gaviscon. But I bought it myself. And now if I want another baby I'll have to risk having to be transported to another hospital while in labour. It's terrifying.

I breastfed DD for a year and still have over half a tube of Lansinoh left over. As lolly says, it's much cheaper than formula!!