The consultant acted as a patient advocate just as a RN but placed more importance on the right technique of either breastfeeding, pumping, or formula feedings. The most surprising finding while shadowing the consult was the large quantity of patients that even had prior children but did not know how to correctly position of latch a newborn. Much of the patient base were bothered by the thought of not having produced enough milk within the first week postpartum. They were unaware of how small the neonatal stomach was and how little it could actually hold. It was also a shock at how many patients the consultant spoke to that wanted to formula feed because they had had trouble having the infant to latch after the first feeding. Throughout the abyss of intriguing findings, there were however, several items that were of no surprise. The fact that throughout the maternity floor the circulated nurses were required to have at least 4 hours of shadowing hours of a consultant. They had to have basic knowledge of breastfeeding techniques and benefits. This is a basic need of patients that the nurse is obligated to have and be able to provide the patient …show more content…
Breastfeeding benefits range from decreases in obesity in infant and mother, to increases in IQ scores later in life (Colin, Lee, & Low, 2016). Just to show how much of an effect breastfeeding has on infant obesity, according to the US Surgeon General “Infants who are not breastfed are 33% more likely to become obese children” (2011). Benefits for mothers also include reduction of obesity and actually showed to be 8 kg lighter 6 years after birth than mothers who did not breastfeed (Colin, et al., 2016). The number of additional benefits are quiet extensive including reduction in rates of hypertension, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, and cardiovascular disease just to list a few (Colin et at.,