Tuesday, August 26, 2014

Infant Feeding Declarations: A Violation of Quality Care

Quality care begins with an unwavering commitment to meeting the needs of patients by providing informed consent and collaborating on care plans in a spirit of shared decision making. That means working with patients to understand what matters to them, it means providing the benefits and risks of the options available, and it means respecting their decisions. Stigmatizing certain decisions does nothing to promote health and well-being of any patient – including mothers.

As such, it is disturbing to see quality care take a back seat for some new mothers in British Columbia as health authorities fail to support all new moms in what is perhaps one of the most health challenging times of their lives. Specifically, the “Infant Feeding Declaration” that is being hoisted upon women is a reprehensible violation of the duty owed to these women as patients, a duty to provide the care that best meets the needs of mothers and their babies, a duty to provide informed consent, and a duty to foster shared decision making.

In the “Infant Feeding Declaration” women are told of the benefits of breastfeeding and the risks of formula feeding. Further, they are asked to make a promise about their future actions regardless of the circumstances they might ultimately face. Imagine being told that by feeding formula you are providing your child with less than the best start in life – and the additional guilt that is brought on by the feeling that you “broke a promise”. Imagine the stigma associated with even admitting that you happened to use formula.

How does any of that contribute to good care?

Frankly, Fraser Health, and any other health authority in British Columbia or elsewhere deserves to be told that treating patients in this way – new mothers, grown women- is wrong and needs to end. All mothers deserve support as they begin motherhood - all new mothers and their babies deserve informed consent and shared decision making. All new mothers deserve to feel that they can be honest about how they feed their children with their care providers – and that means health authorities should provide care and hold the judgement.

I encourage you to tweet (@FraserHealth) or email them and let them know you think they’ve gone to far. Demand better!

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