The weigh-in

Charlotte had her weigh in on Friday and it was extremely disappointing. I must have misunderstood the last weigh in because I thought she´d gained 250 grams in two weeks but apparently it was only 25 grams in the two weeks. And for the month her total was a frightening 160 grams. That´s only a half a pound. It took my breath away when I saw the scales and I realized (without being reminded by the very smug peidatrician) that there is a serious supply problem.

It was a terrible appointment and I left the office crying. The peditrician asked me to supplement her immediately and I said "if so it has to be with my milk" and she said "it´s not working" and I told her that breastfeeding was important to me so we needed to solve the problem, but it was obvious she felt like I was a terrible egoist who only wanted to breastfeed for my benefit and not my baby´s. Talking with her is always like taking my head and smashing it very hard against a brick wall several times. I couldn´t get her to understand that I am able to produce I just have to get my milk to meet Charlotte´s demands and for some reason I am falling behind. It´s a simple issue of economics.

So I am giving myself a week to get the milk supply up. I am not putting this baby down for the whole week. This is a breast feeding marathon. I am holding her non stop. I know that she has been sleeping a lot during the day and I have let her miss her afternoon feeds more than a few times which was terribly remiss of me. If she hasn´t gained a sufficient amount of weight by Friday (have to see the ped again unfortunately because we have no scales...egh!) I will start her on something else. I hate even writing that. It makes me very sad but I don´t know what else I will do.

It wasn´t just the breastfeeding. We had her in cloth diapers which the pediatrician found disgusting. She had never seen them before. I thought it was really odd that she´d never seen cloth diapers before. And then Charlotte had been to the store with us so the diaper was really wet because it had been over two hours without a change. You really have to change cloth diapers every two hours or else they get overfull. And her nails were too long and she scratched the doctor who said "you have to keep these cut!" It's mostly the elite Mexican families that this doctor caters to--ones with maids and nannies to care for the kids so I look like such a bad mother with my girl--hungry and ungroomed. And I suppose I am representing the elite gringa but here I am doing things like a poor Mexican pig farmer´s wife. She just doesn´t get why I am so backwards.

The fact that the pediatrician doesn´t agree doesn´t bother me, it just that she fills Seb´s head with her medical jargon and scares him. I try to explain to him that most pediatricians know nothing about breastfeeding. It all makes sense. Most practicing pediatricians finished med school twenty years ago and breastfeeding was not in vogue at all. And pediatricians cannot readily see the breastmilk so it bothers them. How many times has the doctor accidentally and automatically demanded "how much does she take at each feed?" before she catches herself or is reminded by me saying "she just falls asleep when she´s full." There are several articles on Kellymom.com about how many pediatricians are having to go back and learn about breastfeeding. Because with it being so popular these days they are being asked questions that they cannot answer. Since a doctor hates to say "I don´t know" I get the feeling that they prefer to make up an answer to satisfy the patient rather than appear uninformed. So in all I take what they say with a huge grain of salt. Seb however doesn´t read as much as I do and he takes the professional word of the doctor as gospel thinking I´m just on the defensive because of my supply issues. This is really frustrating. He´s usually so supportive but the doctor is like a huge concrete pilon standing in front of our communication on this issue.

Changing pediatricians here in Mexico will probably only give me more of the same grief. I have asked around for a breast-friendly doctor to no avail. I only have to try and work out this problem myself and quickly. The hard part is having no one to talk with about it. I think I am really most bitter about being here in Mexico when I realize that it is because of our being here that I have no access to a lactation consultant and the knowing that if we were home in France it would be readily available and free, that I´d have a LLL meeting that could help and I´d have about four or five friends who could talk me through this problem.

On a side note here is a very interesting quote I found on Dr. Newman´s website--pediatrics was born around the formulation of supplemental milk. No wonder they´re always pushing formula on me! :

In the late 19th century, as the chemical composition of milks was determined, animal milk was modified to approach human milk more closely in gross composition. Milk first was diluted with water, so that protein and electrolyte concentrations were reduced. Babies fed this diluted formula failed to grow. Experiments revealed that caloric density of human and cow's milk were similar. Subsequently, sugar was added to the mixture. Some infants fed these formulas lived. Manipulating the composition of formulas heralded the advent of Pediatrics as a specialty.
—Lewis Barness. Remarks to AAP, March 19, 1991 San Diego, California. In Pediatrics 1991;88:1055