A breastfeeding support home visit

The last Centering Pregnancy group I co-facilitated, the other co-fac was an experienced LC. Between the two of us, we told the midwife that she should let us know when the moms in the group deliver and we would help them with breastfeeding if they need it. Unfortunately, they deliver at a different hospital in town (not the one where I work) where lactation support is extremely minimal. That hospital also tells moms things like "Just let her cry, she'll figure it out eventually" and "Don't feed your baby more often than every 3 hours" and "Don't let them nurse more than 30 minutes". As you can imagine, a lot of breastfeeding problems result... not to mention jaundice readmits.

One of our Centering moms had help from the midwife at the hospital (including her jaundice readmit), and from the LC once at home. Baby would not latch consistently, and the LC e-mailed me today to say that she thought things had been going better but she had just found out they weren't. She was booked. Could I see this mom today?

It was good timing - I didn't work last night - so I called the mom and headed over. Pulling in to the apartment complex and going into her apartment was a total flashback to my AmeriCorps days* - three immigrant families packed into a single apartment, each with one bedroom of their own. The bedroom was even just like I remembered, cramped with a big TV in the corner.**

We spent a long time working on feeding, pumping, and talking about our plan. She has two problems - getting her baby to latch and maintaining a supply with just a hand pump (which wasn't getting used often enough). This mom told me her goal is "puro pecho" which if you've read my "los dos" post, you know isn't always the case with Hispanic moms! I am so determined to help her reach her goal - she is a committed mom who has been persistent where other people would have given up.

Still, it made me discouraged. A more privileged mom would hopefully have the education and resources to quickly identify breastfeeding problems and feel entitled to help; she would be able to hire a private lactation consultant to make multiple home visits; she would be able to rent a hospital-grade pump to maximize her supply.

This mom happened to do Centering and happened to have for facilitators two LCs with extra time on their hands. What about all the dozens and hundreds of other moms in her situation, who we don't know and can't see? In many other counties, I could refer her to a WIC peer counselor; her county's WIC has none and doesn't seem interested in getting any. At best she might be able to get a better pump from WIC (which she didn't realize - I knew to call and ask.) If not for the very rare happenstance of hands-on support, she'd just be left to struggle on her own, offering a screaming baby the breast 8 times a day and using the hand pump she got in the hospital to get what she can.

This is breastfeeding support in our country, to the most vulnerable moms who need help the most. This is why we need to talk about the public health risks of seeing formula as a perfectly good fall-back. This is totally unfair to mothers who WANT to breastfeed, who are working hard to breastfeed, and who do not have the resources to get the help they deserve.


*Bonus AmeriCorps story: Our supervisor did not love us doing home visits - you wouldn't either, if you were an experienced midwife with strong maternal instincts, in charge of a group of naive but enthusiastic young women. She approved home visits only in very specific circumstances and with lots of warnings. We also had to call when we got there and call when we left safely. Like I said, strong maternal instincts. So one of my teammates and I went to do a home visit one day after lots of dire warnings and promising to call. We are primed to be cautious. We get there and it's just mom and baby home. We start helping her... and her boyfriend walks in just home from work - with a six-pack of beer. Immediately we both get a little anxious. This is what our supervisor was most concerned about - boyfriends/husbands/other men around who would give us a hard time or see us as a target. We're having trouble getting the baby latched (all the while keeping one eye on the guy doing stuff in the kitchen) and we suggest to mom that she pump a little to get the milk flowing. Her boyfriend leaps into action, assembling the breastpump, bringing it to her, and then sits beside her, asking us a lot of concerned questions about how the baby is feeding. So much for our paranoid fantasies!


**For a long time I wondered about that - how could people only have enough money for one bedroom, but still enough to have a huge expensive TV? - until one of my AmeriCorps teammates explained to me that buying expensive electronics was how many people in South American countries keep liquid assets. Think about it - if you don't or can't get a bank account, how can you make sure you can get cash if you need it, without actually keeping all that cash on hand? One way is to buy something that will be easy to re-sell quickly. It's not a great investment, because it will depreciate instead of appreciate, but people only have so many options. I really appreciate the work that community-based organizations and credit unions do to help teach people about banking and make those options more accessible.