When you first see that positive test, your mind takes off. Planning the perfect nursery, the cute pregnant person you will be with the perfect round belly, and how flawless your birth will go.
But what you don’t plan for is when things don’t go perfect; when that amazing little bundle of joy comes sooner than you ever planned; when the birth you had written out can’t be followed due to complications.
That’s when it’s important to have a trusted team with all the possible options available to you and your new baby.
Unfortunately for the hundreds of thousands of families that have preterm babies every year, lawsuits focused on punishing the nutrition companies that create lifesaving formulas for premature babies have gained traction with the third lawsuit taking place now in Missouri.
I’ve had three children with very different experiences – despite my planning for each – and it brought me a new appreciation for infant nutrition, particularly donor milk.
My first pregnancy went rather “perfectly.” We gave birth to a healthy 7-pound, 12-ounce boy, via c-section – unplanned – due to him not dropping properly. I was a new 23-year-old mom, who planned to nurse their baby.
But he had a pretty strong tongue tie which led to me pumping before he became strong enough to overpower the tie. I didn’t know I wasn’t a typical breastfeeding mom, being able to fully nurse my baby and having a large freezer stash. I was pumping out of necessity to reduce pain and limit clogged ducts and mastitis.
My son, Cormac, and I were able to donate nearly 20 gallons of milk though Human Milk for Human Babies of Wisconsin.
Our second baby, a daughter named Marlow, decided to make her way into the world five weeks early and was in the neonatal intensive care unit for six days. Though short in comparison to other NICU stays, those six days were the longest and hardest days for us.
Nothing prepares you for leaving your tiny little baby at the hospital when you go home. I spent every waking moment next to her isolate while she underwent her blue light therapy for jaundice and had her NG tube placed for feeding. Her NG tube needed to be primed with 2 ounces of formula before the 2 ounces of donor milk could be fed, then her next feed was supplemented with donor milk as well.
I will forever be grateful to our hospital for having donor milk on hand, and our medical team for advising it. Marlow only needed those 4 ounces of donor milk before I was able to fully take on her feeds, and just like with Cormac the over-supply came on too. Marlow and I were able to formally donate 60 gallons to micropremies. It felt like the right thing to do, given her humble start in that tiny isolate.
Our third baby and second daughter, Dorothy “Dot,” had a much more complicated entrance. A c-section was needed but, sparing some grim details, after two hours her birth became traumatic and resulted in an emergency hysterectomy. Similar to my other two, the hospital we delivered at was able to provide my husband donor milk while I underwent my surgery and recovery. It all came full circle for us. I donated with our first two, and now my third was reliant on donor milk as I recovered and was prescribed medicines that were not breastfeeding friendly.
All three of my births taught me that, while a plan is nice and calming, sticking to it isn’t always an option. There have been parts of all of my births where the plan went out the window faster than I could have imagined. This is why I strongly believe there needs to be access to all the other feeding options for the unplanned.
As a mom that has experienced so many different birth stories and had access to different feeding products as needed, the current wave of lawsuits scares me for the future of baby nutrition – particularly preemie health.
There are already only two companies in the entire United States that offer the full menu of formula options that include preemie formulas and milk fortifiers. If these lawsuits continue – particularly with their incredulous verdicts – there’s a real chance these companies leave the market completely. That’s a terrifying option.
In the end, the goal for every birth plan is simply a healthy baby. These lawsuits run counter to the goal of every parent. And as every parent knows, at the end of the day, every kid ends up eating food off the floor and licking rocks.
It doesn’t matter if they had breast milk or formula, or if it was from the “tap,” a bottle or an NG tube. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services just said something similar in a statement against these lawsuits, “…all infants should be fed as soon as is medically feasible through whatever appropriate nutritious food source is available.”
We can all agree that what we really want are healthy, fed babies – by whatever means necessary. Let’s focus on matters that can make a positive different for future births, not lawsuits that take us back 50 years.
