We commented yesterday that the motto of the World Breastfeeding Week this year is "Support for breastfeeding mothers: close, continuous and timely!" and that this implies that family members, friends and health professionals become aware so that they can help breastfeeding mothers and breastfed babies.
One of the situations that must be resolved, as soon as possible, although it is going long, is support in terms of health when a breastfeeding mother has a problem. Many family doctors have no idea of ​​breastfeeding and do not know what to prescribe to a breastfeeding mother. In fact, many leave by the tangent and ask the age of the breastfed baby to, if he is over a certain age, recommend weaning. In this situation, What is the doctor to whom breastfeeding mothers should go?
The children's pediatrician
They are the ones who know most about breastfeeding, usually, because they have the most contact with breastfeeding mothers and they are the ones who usually help them the most. Now, they know of breastfeeding because it is the way to help about that issue, but not another. If a mother tells the pediatrician that "I have a broken back for a few days," "I have a terrible cough," "a diarrhea that is killing me" or anything else, The pediatrician cannot prescribe anything because he is not your doctor, is the doctor of his children.
In addition, as we have commented on another occasion, pediatricians are not lactation consultants, as a rule, and many have yet to be recycled in order to respond to the needs and doubts of nursing mothers.
Gynecologist
This is the other option, since he is the doctor of the female reproductive system and one might think that when changes occur in the breasts during pregnancy and after breastfeeding, they could be the ones who could help them.
I do not doubt that they will know, but seeing what they can say to some mothers who breastfeed for a long time, and knowing that many do not even know that when a woman breastfeeds she can be months and years without menstruation, I do not know I am the most qualified.
In any case, the same thing happens with pediatricians, they are not the doctors who evaluate women in a general way, they are specialists in the reproductive system and it is not their obligation or their job to carry out this function.
The family doctor
We only have these, family doctors and emergency doctors. Some will be very involved in the matter, or professional enough to be clear that they do not know about this issue and seek help by asking a classmate or seeking information in a book or even on the Internet, which is what the e-lactation page is for, but others, many others, neither know nor seem to want to know and, what is worse, they have the moral authority to judge a mother for breastfeeding a child they already consider older.
I recommend that you go through the blog of Mama (against) current that a few days ago suffered an allergic reaction having to go to the ER where they told him, basically, that he had to wean his son because he was no longer a baby, to be able to take what they were prescribing.
How many mothers have explained to me that they would like to have breastfed for more time but that they had to leave him because of a health problem for which they should take a medication incompatible with breastfeeding, which then it turned out to be perfectly safe. How many mothers live suffering pain or ill with solution and do not take anything because they want to continue breastfeeding their children, but nobody has been able to prescribe something compatible with breastfeeding.
It is unfortunate, it is a savage that there are mothers suffering without need and disrespectful opinion about breastfeeding a child or how long to breastfeed. "Do not give it a few days" or "take it off and give it a bottle" is not something that a woman should hear in an emergency room or at the doctor, in plan "you take this and the child do not give more", because it is not something that can be done just like that ... "I take your tit off, I put the bottle and solved ..." Total, the children are so small that they don't even know, right? Ha!
No, it is not the way. The obligation of doctors is look for a solution that disrupts family normality as little as possible, and if this happens by recycling, learning or seeking information, it is done. There are many medications that a breastfeeding mother cannot take (well, they are actually few), but there are almost always alternatives, medications with the same effect that are safer than others.
Dear family doctors and emergency doctors, mothers depend on you, they need you and babies and children too. WHO, UNICEF, the AEP and I don't know how many more organizations recommend that children be breastfed for at least two years.
If it is already difficult to get there for work reasons, for the lack of conciliation and for the lack of family and environmental support, imagine how impossible it can be if when you go to the doctor for anything you can not take anything (actually being able ) and on top of that they receive strange looks, semi-curls, disrespectful recommendations, value judgments and they end up feeling crazy and weird.
A pity, because many end up lying without explaining that they are breastfeeding, at the risk of then having to look on the internet if they can take what they have prescribed and return to the doctor to say that of "sorry, I have not remembered that I am giving the chest ... could you prescribe something compatible with breastfeeding, such as Churriflin®, that I can take it? "
Photos | Mothering Touch, moppet65535 on Flickr In Babies and more | What criticisms can pediatricians make towards prolonged breastfeeding? (I) and (II), "It is a myth to say that the woman who breastfeeds cannot take medication." Interview with José María Paricio (I) and (II), Can we trust pediatricians when talking about breastfeeding?
