The mother of a baby switched in a Minnesota hospital this week is understandably upset about the switch. But that's not what has Tammy Van Dyke really all hot and bothered. The newborn boy was breastfed by the wrong mother!
Think that's no big deal? For a second, I was right there with you. So she breastfed him, so what? At least it was a kind and loving moment. Except ... let's think about what happens when you breastfeed a baby.
You are giving that baby breast milk, something made by your body. You're giving the baby all sorts of good things: antibodies to diseases. But if you have something not so good in your body -- say an actual disease -- you've just put the baby at risk.
In Cody's case, he was taken into the room of a woman who had just given birth to twins. The other (wrong) mother started to breastfeed, but something felt off. So she took the baby boy off her breast and checked his name tag. He wasn't hers!
The switch was solved pretty quickly, but because breastfeeding had been initiated, Tammy's son has already had to undergo blood tests for HIV and hepatitis. That means additional needles going into this teeny, weeny little guy. And he's going to have even more as the months go on; he'll have to be tested again and again over the next few years.
As a mother, that's nerve-wracking. It's not just the fear of disease (although that is obviously the biggest concern), but the thought of your baby being put through additional pain over and over. I remember holding my daughter for her lead test, and seeing the needle coming at her tiny arm put tears in my eyes. We're supposed to protect our kids from pain, not have to sit there and watch it happen.
Would you be freaked if another mother breastfed your baby? What would bother you the most?
Image via limaoscarjuliet/Flickr
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Comments 113
Really doesn't seem like that a deal to me. Isn't there some type of group that takes donated human milk for babies that need it? It would have been much easier to test the mom for the diseases. I don't really get the big deal. If we can administer donated blood products after testing the doner, why would the breast milk be that much more risky? It does say something about their method of taking the babies to the moms though. They really should be a little more organized when there are so many tools available to help avoid this type of mix up. I mean if the mom was able to tell by checking the name band, I would assume the nurses would be doing this too, and that it is likely hospital policy or something to check the name band prior to giving a baby over.
I have some serious questions about this story. The first being was the other mother infected with something contagious? If not then this truly sounds more like a scare tactic from the hospital to drum up more money than reasonable conserns. Afterall I've been donating milk directly to families since 2006 and there have never been any similar concerns. If the other mother had issues of a contagious illness then in all likelihood the she was on medications to reduce the risk of transmission and as a result a single breastfeeding encounter would be an extremely low risk of infection.