Baby Friendly Hospitals

Baby Friendly Hospital Initiative

What does that mean, anyway?  Did you or will you deliver in a baby friendly hospital?

What should you expect?

Listen up to get the 10 Steps for Baby Friendly Breastfeeding Support.  Know your options.

Because we like knowledge.

If you are a new listener, we would love to hear from you.  Please consider leaving us a review on itunes or sending us an email with your suggestions and comments to badassbreastfeedingpodcast@gmail.com

WE HAVE TRANSCRIPTS!!  You can also add your email to our list and have episodes sent right to your inbox!
 

Things we talked about:

What is baby friendly? [3:58]

How many babies are born in baby friendly hospitals in the USA? [6:26]

World wide baby friendly [7:24]

Step 1 [12:38]

Step 2 [14:18]

Step 3 [17:09]

Step 4 [21:55]

Step 5 [23:10]

Step 6 [26:38]

Step 7 [29:16]

Step 8 [33:42]

Step 9 [34:28]

Step 10 [35:53]

Today’s Shout Out is to Melanated Midwives [20:51]

melanatedmidwives.org

*This Episode is sponsored by Fairhaven Health and Sheila Darling Coaching

Links to information we discussed or episodes you should check out!

https://badassbreastfeedingpodcast.com/episode/bottles-versus-breast/

https://badassbreastfeedingpodcast.com/episode/071-overfeeding-paced-bottle-feeding/

 https://www.who.int/activities/promoting-baby-friendly-hospitals/ten-steps-to-successful-breastfeeding

Set up your consultation with Dianne

https://badassbreastfeedingpodcast.com/consultations/     

Check out Dianne’s blog here~

https://diannecassidyconsulting.com/milklytheblog/

Follow our Podcast~

• https://badassbreastfeedingpodcast.com

Here is how you can connect with Dianne and Abby~

• Abby Theuring  https://www.thebadassbreastfeeder.com
• Dianne Cassidy http://www.diannecassidyconsulting.com

Music we use~

Music: "Levels of Greatness" from "We Used to Paint Stars in the Sky (2012)" courtesy of Scott Holmes at freemusicarchive.org/music/Scott Holmes

Transcript

dianne (00:00):
Welcome to the badass breastfeeding podcast. I'm Dianne, your lactation consultant,
abby (00:25):
And I'm Abby, the badass breast feeder and today's episode is brought to you by Fair Haven health. Are
you leaking breast milk in between feedings? Now you can collect that milk rather than throw it away
and your breast pads and today's episode is also sponsored by Sheila Darling Coaching. Sheila darling is a
social worker, certified hypnotherapist and mindfulness meditation teacher, and could be your start to a
more peaceful life. And we'll hear more about our sponsors later, but these sponsors make this podcast
possible. Please head to badassbreastfeeding podcast.com and check out our sponsor page, check there
and see if you can give them any of your business. That would be awesome. And while you're there, you
can scroll down and enter your email address and get these episodes sent straight to your inbox. Every
Monday. I do it myself. So I can assure you that they will be there. Maybe in your spam folder. I don't
know, but check there.
dianne (01:17):
Everything Goes to the spam folder.
abby (01:20):
So Annoying. Um, now Dianne has our review of the week.
dianne (01:24):
Yes, it's comes off of our iTunes. So thank you so much for putting it there. And it comes from Bama
penn. We are her late night BFFs and she said, I am on my third nursling and just found your podcast.
Baby is now 13 days old. This was a couple of months ago. I was blessed with my first child and had a
really easy nursing postpartum journey. My second baby was the exact opposite. He cried for the first six
months of his life. We battled reflux weight gain MSPI, which led to a bad case of postpartum anxiety.
Going into this new baby, I had all the same worries returned. We hadn't even left the hospital before
the neonatologist was saying things like reflux and he has really sensitive skin. So watch for dairy. I've
been able to go back and listen to episodes that would have been so valuable during that awful time
with my second, and that it's giving me reassurance and relief going forward with my third baby. I love
listening to the confident matter of fact manner in which you present information. That just makes
sense. It doesn't hurt that y'all are hilarious and make me laugh out loud. I literally feel better after
listening. Thank you so much. I'll be sure to share this resource to other mamas. Thank you so much. I
have had a lot of people tell me that they listen, like while they're up feeding during the night,
abby (02:40):
What else can you do? I know get your little headset out and just listen to stuff and yeah,
dianne (02:45):
I know. It's awesome. Makes the time go by. Well, thank you so much. And we love to get your reviews
and hearing your experiences. And this I think was great because it's, it shows you how different babies
can be from baby to baby. You know, it's like, don't we expect the next one to be just like the first one
never happens. Never happens. So that is a great example of that. So thank you so much. And she put
that on iTunes, which is really helpful to the podcast. So thank you. Go ahead and put reviews for us on

iTunes. We would love it. Or you can send us an email and we will read that too at
badassbreastfeedingpodcast@gmail.com and we'll get those. They usually do not go to the spam folder.
So I get them and read them and respond to them. So
abby (03:34):
Personal emails don't go to the spam folder, but those email lists
dianne (03:39):
Lordy. So yeah. So today we're going to talk about baby friendly hospital.
abby (03:46):
Is it baby friendly or breastfeedingFriendly.
dianne (03:48):
baby friendly.
abby (03:49):
Oh, and that means breastfeeding friendly.
dianne (03:51):
Yeah.
abby (03:54):
All right. That's funny. So what does that mean?
dianne (03:58):
So let's talk about it. It is, this came from the world health organization. So from WHO and UNICEF
started this worldwide, there is a baby friendly USA that handles the hospitals here in the United States.
But baby-friendly as a whole is a worldwide like venture, I should say. And there are certain things that
you need to do to become a baby friendly hospital. Like you can't just be like, okay, I'm we're baby
friendly. Like there's this whole list of stuff that needs to be done. You have to have people come in and
make sure you're doing all the right things before they say, okay, we can designate you as a baby
friendly hospital. There's money involved. Of course. Um, but the WHO and UNICEF launched the baby
friendly hospital initiative to help motivate facilities, providing maternity and newborn services
worldwide to implement the 10 steps to successful breastfeeding. And we're going to talk about those
10 steps. So everybody knows what those 10 steps are, but they summarize a package of policies and
procedures that facilities providing maternity and newborn services should implement to support
breastfeeding. So they call it baby friendly, but it really is supporting the breastfeeding
abby (05:15):
Breastfeeding chest feeding is baby-friendly.
dianne (05:18):

Exactly. Yes. And a lot of it too is like, you know, I mean, they don't like not talk about the breastfeeding
parent through this either. So it is, you know, parent friendly, I guess you could say
abby (05:31):
Most people, most people, the vast majority, the large percentage of people that have babies in
hospitals, their goal is to breastfeed. Yeah. Right. So, and like in, in those hospitals, that goal is being
supported while in other hospitals, for example, the one I was in, many of you were in that is not, does
not seem to be the goal.
dianne (05:52):
So it is kind of interesting because I have had people say that they didn't know, you know, obviously
what a baby-friendly hospital is. Um, I wouldn't have known. Yeah. I'll if I didn't work in this field, I mean,
I wouldn't have known what it was. I wouldn't have known if I was giving birth in one. Cause they don't
really announce it. They're not like, Oh, we're this, baby's in the hospital. Like, but we have one here
right. In my area. Um, and honestly like, I don't know how they keep that designation, but
abby (06:24):
Oh, it doesn't seem very baby friendly.
dianne (06:26):
No. I mean the things that you have to follow, like the, the, um, breastfeeding parents that come out of
there, that I am up seeing, like it doesn't, I'm like, wow, that that's not very baby friendly activity going
on there. You know, like it's just, it's, it's weird. Um, in the United States about a quarter, almost 30%,
but hovering between like 25 and 30% of, of the babies in the United States are born at baby friendly
hospitals. We have like 600 here or something like that in the United States worldwide. They do way
better with it. Oh yeah.
abby (07:04):
Yeah. Well, because they follow the WHO code of like, um, formula marketing and stuff like that. Yeah.
So which that alone would change the nature of hospitals across the board if we did that, but we would
never do that because our goal is capitalism
dianne (07:20):
And that really is what it comes down to.
abby (07:22):
That's what it comes down to always.
dianne (07:24):
Yeah. So in the worldwide, there's more than 20,000 maternity facilities in 150 countries around the
world here in the United States. We have like, I think, like I said, like 600, like a quarter of our babies are
born in and, um, Baby Friendly hospitals here. So I'm sorry, go ahead. No, that's okay. So I was going to
start talking about the steps, but what were you going to say?
abby (07:47):

I was actually probably going to lead It was probably, my question was probably going to lead into that
was, um, I imagine that the, the steps or the first of all, I feel like this is so backwards. Like, I feel like the
government should be making hospitals do this, you know, instead it's reversed, hospitals are fighting
for this. Um, and they're for this designation, right. This baby friendly designation or whatever, and the
government should be making hospitals follow these rules. Right. Right. But what we're doing is we're
we actually pushed the formula into hospitals. And so I imagine some of these steps are kind of trying to
push back on that. Yes. Okay.
dianne (08:25):
Yeah. They absolutely. So
abby (08:29):
What a ridiculous situation, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. This makes me so angry. Sorry.
dianne (08:36):
And I don't even know if I need to get into this before, after I talk about the 10 steps, but there are a lot
of entities that do not believe in this. They don't think that it works. They're like this isn't a real, this
doesn't really work. This isn't beneficial. Um, the people from like fed are best fed is best. What does
that? Whatever,
abby (09:02):
Fed is Best foundation or campaign or whatever they call it
dianne (09:06):
The person that started that who had a very negative breastfeeding experience, which is why they
started that group was a baby friendly hospital. It felt like she was just pushed into everything and
nobody suggested any other kind of support for her. So people are saying like, I think it really depends
on the hospital. Obviously everything depends on the hospital. Everything depends on the people that
you are dealing with within that hospital.
abby (09:30):
And even larger is like our, our, our society at large doesn't believe in breastfeeding, you know, we don't
see it. We don't, we don't understand it to be like the biological norm. So of course it's like, you know,
some people are just like, well, wait a minute. Why am I being forced into this?
dianne (09:47):
Right. But there are several steps to baby friendly. It's not just encourage breastfeed. Like there's several
steps here. So it's like, if you're looking at these steps and you're implementing these steps, even, even
hospitals that are not baby friendly, if you are at least implementing some of these steps, you're going
to do better with breastfeeding, with breastfeeding statistics in your hospital. So if people are looking to
be like, okay, I know my hospital's not going to go baby friendly. Like the one that I used to work at, I
was like, Oh, it'd be so cool if we were baby friendly. And they're like, yeah, that's never going to happen
here. You know, because you know why in baby friendly, one of the steps is that the hospitals cannot
accept free formula. They have to purchase it.

abby (10:30):
They shouldn't even be allowed to. Formula companies. Shouldn't be allowed to give it. They shouldn't
be allowed to accept it.
dianne (10:38):
But that is part of our thing here. Whereas in other countries, they don't, it's not like that. They don't
exactly. They follow the WHO here. We don't do that here. The the formula that you're getting in the
hospital is donated by the, by the formula companies or very, very, very, very, very cheap. I don't even
know. But yeah,
abby (11:03):
Along with, you know, uh, lots of money and lots of steak dinners and lots of other incentives to push it,
dianne (11:11):
There's a lot of incentives there. So if you become baby friendly, you have to agree to not accept that.
And you have,
abby (11:20):
By the way, shouldn't be up to the hospital. It should just be a government thing that you're not allowed
to. The companies aren't allowed to do that. Right. And I'll go on to say before, somebody says that I'm
like anti formula. If you do want formula, it should be free. Right? For you. You shouldn't have to be
paying for it.
dianne (11:36):
And these, these hospitals, they do have formula. It's just thing that they have to purchase it at a, you
know, whatever rate that they're purchasing it at. So they're not going to be as free to give it away.
Right.
abby (11:49):
Makes them like a little bit more like, okay, well, we're going to use this as needed, not as just a general
push onto everybody.
dianne (11:55):
They're supposed to be using that money to train their employees so that everybody is trained in
breastfeeding. And they're supposed to be implementing breastfeeding policies so that if someone says,
I think I need formula. They have somebody that can help with that. But, or instead of saying, Oh, your
baby seems really hungry. We're just going to give them formula. You know, like if the mother requests
it, they they're supposed to give it. If the mother requests it in a baby friendly hospital, but they're not
supposed to just automatically say, Oh, your baby's cluster feeding. They must be starving. Let's give
them some formula. They can't do that. There. At least they're not supposed to because it's, you know,
they're just, you know, they just don't, they're not as open to giving it away. Right. So step number one
of these 10 steps to better breastfeeding is hospital policies and supporting mothers and breastfeeding
parents. So that is not promoting formula, um, making breast and chest feeding care, standard practice,
and keeping track of support for, breast and chest feeding. That is number one. So they're supposed to

have all, everybody in that hospital on the maternity floor, everybody everywhere is supposed to be
supportive of breastfeeding.
abby (13:15):
Okay. Sounds good.
dianne (13:16):
Right. Even the person that comes in to sweep your floor is supposed to be supportive. All the people,
abby (13:24):
They could probably just not say anything you would think, right. You're probably just stay here, stay out
and stay out of my business. If you're sweeping the floor,
dianne (13:35):
I was working in the hospital, we had this one. Um, they did the hearing test, you know, they come in
and they do the little hearing tests on the babies. And she was like overly breastfeeding, friendly. She
would be like, Oh, I helped that mom and room, whatever. And I'm like, you can't Just do that. check
those fricking hearing on the baby.
abby (13:59):
Sounds a little like getting into a little cultish there with everybody's like, Oh, you're breastfeeding. Oh,
that's so wonderful. I'm so supportive of that sweep sweep. I no, no, no.
dianne (14:14):
Yeah. So the next one is number two is staff competency, hospitals supporting parents to breast and
chest feed by training staff.
abby (14:25):
That would be good.
dianne (14:25):
And assessing health workers, knowledge and skills. So there is specific trainings that have been put
together and organized for staff members. Unfortunately, they just do a lot of it online because they're
like, Oh, here you need this. So many hours of training. So just here, just do it online. When you get a
chance, because hospital staff doesn't tend to be able to go to trainings. You know, they need them on
the floor, which is another problem. They don't have enough staff to let people get trained. So a lot of
times when we wanted to go to conferences or trainings and, you know, cool things like that, they either
wouldn't support it financially for us because they were like, no, we can't afford to send you to this. If
you want to do it, you have to do it on your own at your own cost. Or they would be like, we can't give
you the time off for that. So it's very frustrating. It's ridiculous. So this is something that like getting staff
trained is a big deal, but they need to be
abby (15:33):
Keep the staff uninformed. I mean, that's really great for a formula companies initiative, like for their
bottom line. Like that's really a great way to do it.

dianne (15:43):
Right? So it's, you know, really, that's unfortunate. I think within the past year, because of so many
trainings being on zoom and everything, I hope a lot of people have been able to take advantage of that
and do more trainings, but it's never the same, you know, when you can do in person training and you
can ask questions, it's just, you know, sort of the same. But I, there is something called the 20 hour
training for the breastfeeding friendly hospital initiative. And I am actually trained to do that training. So
I've done it for, um, you know, for different staff members for different groups in the past, because it
has also is 20 hours of training. So it can also help to, um, renew like certified lactation counselors need
to renew their certification every couple of years. So it would renew that, but you know, even offered
like I'm the only person in our area that can do that training. And even if I would like put it out and offer
it, like hospitals would never send their staff. Like it's just, it would, if people went, it was because they
wanted to on their own, they wanted to get that information on their own. So it's really unfortunate. It's
like, you know what? I could train all your staff and you guys are just declining it, which is really sad.
abby (17:06):
Yep. Because breastfeeding is not a priority. Exactly.
dianne (17:09):
So number three is antinatal care. Hospitals support breastfeeding parents to breastfeed by discussing
the importance of breastfeeding and chest feeding for babies and parents and preparing families in how
to feed their baby. So this is going right into OB care and midwifery care. This is stuff that should be
talked about pre natal. They should be taking a few minutes in each appointment to be talking about
breastfeeding.
abby (17:41):
Yeah. Or feeding choices, just like going over your feeding choices. Like we don't, I never had that.
dianne (17:47):
Right. Exactly.
abby (17:48):
Never mentioned at once.
dianne (17:50):
It's like, When you get to the hospital, they say, Oh, what do you want to do? Breastfeed or formula
feed. And you'd be like, Oh, what are you doing? Oh. And they just like, check a box
abby (17:59):
Even, yeah. Even with my OB GYN, An experience in my midwife experience, I don't, we didn't really
speak about that. Yeah.
dianne (18:05):
And they really shouldn't be, it's something that should be coming up.
abby (18:09):

Should we continue after a break from our sponsors?
dianne (18:13):
Yeah, absolutely.
abby (18:15):
We'll be right back. Today's episode is brought to you by fair Haven health. The original milk saver is
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a V E N. health.com and use promo code badass for 15% off of your purchase there. And this episode is
also sponsored by Sheila Darling coaching. The transition to Parenthood can be intense. Feelings of
anxiety and depression are actually quite common. Your feelings should not be ignored. You deserve
space where you can process this transition and all of the emotional and psychological changes that
come with it. You may hear people telling you to just enjoy it, or it all goes by so fast. These statements
are dismissive of the changes we're going through. When we have a new baby transitioning to a new
family member, isn't always the peaceful journey we see on TV. Sheila Darling coaching can be that
professional support person that Dianne and I are always saying, there is no shame in getting Sheila
Darling is a social worker, certified hypnotherapist and mindfulness meditation teacher. And could be
your start to a more peaceful life head to Sheiladarling.com to schedule your consultation today and
mention this podcast and get 10% off of a coaching package. Uh, these sponsors and their promo codes
can be found in our show notes. Under this episode at badass breastfeeding podcast.com our show
notes will also include further information about things we talk about in this episode and a specialty
podcast.com. You'll also find our breastfeeding resources, all of our other episodes, episodes, episodes,
and about scheduling your very own one-on-one online lactation consultation with Dianne. And this
week's shout out this week goes to melanated midwives. Melanated Midwives, You can find them on
Instagram and they are, um, they say that more black indigenous and people of color midwives are
needed. Melanated midwives provides financial support through three, $5,000 scholarships annually to
student midwives that identify as black indigenous or people of color. So head to 'em, you can go to
melanatedmidwives.org and file, find out more information about that, but that is, I love that initiative
and check it out. If you identify as black, indigenous, or a person of color, you could be, um, qualify for
one of these, uh, scholarships and enrich the, uh, midwifery profession.
dianne (21:46):
That's amazing. I do that. I love it.
abby (21:48):
that's all I've got. It's all. What number are we?

dianne (21:55):
We are on number four. Yes. Number four is care right after birth, which is basically encouraging that
skin to skin contact right away after birth. If both parent and baby are healthy and everything is perfect.
Um, and to help that breastfeeding parent breastfeed her baby right after birth, you know, like within
that first hour, we want those babies to be skin to skin. We want the baby to go and be able to feed
pretty quickly. Not because they're starving, but because that's what they do. Um, and that is number
four, is that skin to skin contact right after. And that is something that really has taken off. I feel like that
happens pretty much around the board. I haven't heard from anybody recently, um, from like the
messages and stuff like that, that we get from around the country and around the world, that they don't
get that skin to skin time.
abby (22:53):
So hopefully. Maybe after like a C-section or something. Yeah. And that's getting better, getting better
with that.
dianne (23:02):
They're getting better with that. So hopefully that'll continue to grow. And it'll be a normal thing after C-
sections. To number five, supporting mothers and breastfeeding parents with breast and chest feeding,
hospitals, support breastfeeding parents to breast and chest feed by checking position and attachment
checking, making sure that they're sucking, um, giving practical support and advice, helping mothers and
breastfeeding parents with common problems, common breast and chest feeding problems. So pain
concerns is my baby getting enough, are they doing? And really somebody should be taking the time to
teach you these things and to sit with you and make sure that you know, what you're looking for. And
this is kind of where it comes in, where I find a lot of discrepancy, even with the baby friendly hospitals,
is that you find that there's a lot of misinformation or a lot of confusing information, you know, like
maybe your nurse on day one came and told you a, B and C, and then the nurse that you saw overnight
told you something completely different. And then the next nurse, the next day said, no, don't listen to
them. This is what I want you to do. I hear this all the time.
abby (24:24):
Yes, yes. I remember experiencing that And yeah. And then they would, they're like talk about each
other. Yeah. You know, they would just be like, Oh, I'm so, Oh, she's so annoying. She just does this and
this and this. No, that's not right. You're not supposed to do that. You're supposed to do it like this. And
I'm like, Oh, okay.
dianne (24:41):
Yeah. I mean, when I'm in the Peds office, the parents are like, we just wanted to get here because we
knew you would be here. And we could work with one person, you know, because we heard so many
different things. And I hear that from people that deliver everywhere, it is such a common problem.
abby (25:00):
And that could be helped with like the training part.
dianne (25:03):

Exactly. And everybody's on the same page if there's consistency to the training, but the problem one of
the big problems is you have people that have their own experiences and they want you to live through
their experience, which we don't do that for any other aspect of healthcare.
abby (25:18):
No, I know it it's so true. Everybody really just starts putting in their 2 cents when it comes to babies. It's
insane. Starts with pregnancy.
dianne (25:25):
Yes, exactly. Yeah. I just, I mean, it's insane. So getting the, the support that you need, they really should
be helping you. One of the other things that I hear a lot too from families is that they don't either, they
get too much information and they're inundated with a lot of conflicting information or they don't get
that much at all. So they're like, I, you know, the, the staff came in and they were like, Oh my gosh, you
haven't fed the baby. It's been six hours. And the breastfeeding parents said, well, I didn't know. I was
supposed to wake up the baby. Yeah. I had no idea that that was what I was supposed to be doing. Like,
well, yes, of course, of course you have to wake up the baby to feed the baby. How are you supposed to
know that? How do you know it's your first baby? You're probably exhausted from birthing.
abby (26:12):
Yeah. And everyone keeps coming in to wake up the baby to poke them and prod them and twist them
and hang them upside down. And you're like, Oh my God, this baby's just trying to sleep.
dianne (26:21):
I know you don't want to wake them up. Yeah. So it's like, it's either one or the other either they act like
you're supposed to know all the things, which you're not, by the way, you're not supposed to know all
the things or they tell you too many things. So it's very frustrating. Number six is supplementing
hospitals, support breastfeeding parents to breast and chest feed by giving only breast milk, unless there
are medical reasons, prioritizing donor human milk when a supplement is needed, helping breastfeeding
parents who want to formula feed to do so safely. So nowhere on this list is to deny a parent formula. If
they're requesting it, that is not on this list. It is. We want you to do it safely, which means not
overfeeding with formula, which is really easy to do. Paced bottle feeding, which is better for babies. I
think we have a episode on that. Um, kind of teaching them how to do that. So,
abby (27:24):
and not pushing it On you against your will. That's mostly what happens.
dianne (27:29):
Yeah. So this is, this is what we have for supplementing. There was a mom that I did a, uh, virtual consult
with. She is in San Francisco, I think. Yes, it was San Francisco and the hospital that she gave birth in.
They had human milk for supplementing and that's, and It wasn't like, cause here they do that. They do
it in the NICU here in our NICU, in Rochester where I am. But only there like your baby has to be like a
certain, so many weeks early and it has to be, you know, like it really there's like all these little rules to
it, but this hospital, this was just a, you know, your average every day, you know, full term baby that I
don't remember if it was a jaundice or a blood sugar issue. And they supplemented with human milk,
just like, okay, we're just going to give your baby human milk for supplementing. But like, that is
fantastic. That is an amazing thing to be doing in your hospital. And I have never heard of that as, just to

be just like, Oh yeah, we supplemented with human milk. And then, you know what those parents did
when they went home, they got the same human milk for supplementing. So they continued that on at
home until her supply was established instead of just going to formula because that's what the formula
companies want. They want you to start off with her formula in the hospital. So that's what you're going
to continue with when you go home. And that's what they did with human milk. So that baby never had
to have a formula, which was amazing. So they had, like I mentioned before with baby friendly, you have
to agree to not accept these things, to not accept formula. So they're really supposed to be more
supportive of having babies breastfeed rooming in this is another thing that is on the list and hospitals
are supporting breastfeeding mothers by letting them stay together day and night, making sure that
mothers of sick babies can stay near their babies. Um, this was one of the complaints. I read an article
about people that were complaining about baby friendly and delivering at a baby friendly hospital. And
this was one of the complaints. They wouldn't take my baby. A lot of hospitals don't have nurseries
anymore. They just don't have it. They don't have the staff to support a nursery. They don't, they just
don't have it. So they encourage you to room in, and there are some parents that really don't want to do
that, or they feel uncomfortable rooming in.
abby (30:03):
Yeah. Yeah.
dianne (30:05):
Really important to room in. It really is for your baby's sake
abby (30:10):
Same environment, staying exposed to the same.
dianne (30:14):
Yeah. You want to See their cues. You want to learn them. And research that has been done about
rooming in has shown that parents are more confident when they room in with their babies going home
with that baby, because there've been watching their cues. They've been listening to them. They've
been responding right away when they cry. Yeah.
abby (30:33):
I remember being in the hospital with Jack and, um, the nurse, the one main nurse. So I can't remember
right now. I remember her coffee breath all the time, but she was so amazing and like sent her flowers
afterwards. She helped us breastfeed and all that. I mean, they also gave us formula and tried to ruin
everything, but it wasn't really her fault. Um, I remember like, you know, shortly after delivery, you
know, sitting there, you know, with Jack sleeping in the little, you know, little box that they sleep in next
to the bed. And, uh, I was like so exhausted. And she was like, do you want me to take him? She was
like, I can take him for a little while, so you can rest, I'll hold him. I'll take him, I'll take care of him. And
like, I, it just freaked me out. I was like, no, it's okay. Like just leave him here. Um, but she was like, you
know, I think that there are people who are so, and you have, so depending on how many drugs you had
during, you know, like sometimes people need like a minute to recover from the birth experience. Yeah.
So it would be nice to have a nurse that could, you know, what would be even amazing is if the nurses
could do like wrap the babies and do skin to skin while they do their rounds. I know that we know like
just putting them in there and kind of just like, you know, you have one on the front, one of the back, I
don't know. No, we could never do that here because of the liability and all this. Oh my God. And you

know, never happened. But like, that would be great. It would be, yeah, it would be great. But yeah, I
mean, I was too uncomfortable with it, but I can see somebody being like, I just need to sleep for a few
hours. Like sleep this off. You need to sleep off the hang over.
dianne (32:08):
Yeah, I know. And that's how I was with the twins. I was by myself because we had a two year old at
home. So my ex-husband went home to be with our son obviously. And I had a C-section, it was really
hard to get up and down and move around and I needed that extra help. So they really should be like, if
it works and this is kind of how it is, if it works, we, the hospital that I worked in, we didn't have a
nursery, but they did have nurses that would take the baby for a couple of hours if necessary, you know,
the nurse would have always offered to do that. Um, and just kind of like, keep the baby close with them
while they did their charting or whatever. But when I had Nathan at an army hospital, and this was 20
years ago before they were really doing rooming in, they were like, I was like, do you take him? And
they're like, no, unless there's something wrong with him, but there's nothing wrong with him. He stays
with you. And I was like, okay. I mean, I was in the army. We didn't argue with that. We were just like,
okay. You know, but they didn't. They were like, Nope, he stays with you. He does not leave you unless
there was a medical reason why? And I said, okay. And that was it.
abby (33:14):
It's so funny that you asked though, I know we still have this, like this thing with authority, hospital,
people being the authority. Like, do you take my baby?
dianne (33:22):
And I didn't know. I know nobody knows. I had no idea.
abby (33:27):
Nobody has any idea. And then it's just like, are you going to take my baby? Are you supposed to take
my baby? Where do you do I keep my baby? Or do you keep my baby? Like what a weird situation we
are in
dianne (33:42):
The country. It is so weird. Number eight, responsive feeding. And all this means is that they are
supposed to help you to recognize when your baby is hungry and help you to understand that there
shouldn't be any limits on breastfeeding. And I have yet to meet somebody who said, Oh, at the
hospital. They told me to just let the baby feed whenever they want. I know
abby (34:04):
There's always some numbers and rules around it. Yeah.
dianne (34:07):
I mean, sometimes I'll hear them say, no, definitely just keep putting the baby back on. But it depends
on who you are with. It's not very common that you'll hear that you usually hear like the numbers and
the rules and the regulations, but they're supposed to be working with you to see, okay, see what your
baby is doing right now. This means that they're hungry. Let's put them back to breast again. You know,
like that's what they're supposed to be teaching you, these things and helping you with this. Nine. This is

another one that pisses people off Sometimes. No bottles, teats, pacifiers. So the hospitals, like the
hospitals here, like I said, there's only one baby friendly one, but none of them give pacifiers unless it's
like
Speaker 3 (34:44):
Oh my God. They were obsessed with putting a pacifier Jack's mouth. I kept throwing it in the garbage.
another one would appear. It was just like this magical pacifier thing that kept happening. And I'm like,
he doesn't need that in there, but they just kept putting them in there. I was like, Oh my God, how many
of these do you have?
dianne (35:00):
Right. They come out of the wood work. But like people would ask at the hospital I worked at they'd be
like, can I have a pacifier? And we're like, we don't have them. Like, we literally didn't have them special
care nursery would have them because if the babies were like, you know, under lights or something like
that, they had to soothe them somehow. So they would give them a pacifier. But, um, if you just had
your baby with you, they didn't. So people would just bring their own. So it's like, okay, if you wanted to
have your baby to have a pacifier, bring one because they're not going to give them one at the hospital,
but they're supposed to be kind of like, you know, counseling on the risks of that, making sure you
know, your baby's feeding cues. You don't want to be plugging them in with a pacifier. If they're really
hungry, you know, you want to feed them. So that is one of the things that is one of the steps. And like I
said, it pisses people off because they want their babies to have a pacifier. Then people are like, sorry,
can't help ya in the baby friendly hospital. Right. And at discharge. They're supposed to be referring you
to community supports and working with communities to improve the breast and chest feeding
supports that are in their area.
abby (36:08):
LOL.
dianne (36:09):
Right. So, but that is something that is part of the, of the 10 steps is making sure that parents are being
discharged with information of where they can get help if they need it. And that is important.
abby (36:23):
Totally. Yeah. Absolutely. I
dianne (36:25):
Don't know if were you given any information?
abby (36:27):
No. It was given any information at all. Yeah. I just, yeah, it took me to the door and they were like BYE.
dianne (36:33):
with all your formula,
abby (36:35):

right. With our big giant bag of formula and the baby that I didn't know how to take care of. Right. Bye.
dianne (36:41):
So basically like, so those are the 10 steps. So you have, there are hospitals that will, you know, that will
be doing some of these steps automatically. They're doing skin to skin, they're doing rooming in, they're
doing no pacifiers, but it's maybe not all the 10 steps because they're not a baby-friendly hospital
because they still have the formula there. So that should be though that even if you can do some of
these steps, that should be supportive of breast and chest feeding for parents.
abby (37:15):
Yeah. I mean, those are good steps.
dianne (37:18):
They are. But if you are delivering in a baby friendly hospital, then you know, you should be expecting
this kind of care. That's what that means. You know, you're delivering in a breastfeeding baby-friendly
hospital, you should be expecting care to support you and your new baby
abby (37:37):
Yeah. And how can you find out if a hospital is baby-friendly
dianne (37:41):
You can just Google it, Google the hospital that you're planning to deliver in.
abby (37:45):
Or like baby friendly hospitals in my area.
dianne (37:49):
Yeah, absolutely.
abby (37:51):
Well, thanks, Dianne. That was very informative. Well, that's what you're here for.
dianne (37:57):
That's what I'm here for. I know I was trying to think of like some sassy response nothing was coming
abby (38:02):
I spend Most of my day, trying to think of a sassy response. It's like most, mostly like dead silence for a
few seconds. And people are like, Oh, she's trying to think of something smartass to say.
dianne (38:12):
I'm just not quick like that.
abby (38:14):
So used to be quicker, but just give me a few seconds and some something smart will come out.

Speaker 1 (38:18):
I know exactly. Oh my God. Well, thanks for listening. Thank you. [inaudible].