As a junior student midwife, my development of practice reasoning is still at a progressing stage, given that most of the decision making is facilitated by midwives, nurses and registrars. While I will not be expected to make significant midwifery decisions around women or newborn care anytime soon, there are instances where I have demonstrated my development towards becoming skilled at practice reasoning.
One particular case was when a first time mother who intended to breastfeed, inquired about formula supplementation for her 2 day old newborn. Jessie (pseudonym) had a natural vaginal birth of a healthy 3.21kg baby boy at 41+2 weeks gestation. At the handover, it was noted that she had already asked other midwives about this prior and her request for formula was …show more content…
Hence, it is important to mitigate potential barriers to exclusive breastfeeding such as maternal percieved insufficient milk supply. Without sufficient support and knowledge, Jessie would’ve resorted to mix feeding or exclusive bottle feeding, causing premature cessation. I tried supporting and empowering Jessie by giving her information about the normal physiology or lactation and normative newborn behaviour so that she herself could understand the midwifery rationale against formula supplementation. Seeing that she was concerned about her breast being soft and that only small amounts of ‘milk’ (colostrum) was available, I advised her that this was normal; that the amounts of colostrum observed was sufficient to meet her baby’s needs and that her milk would come in in a couple of days. Her baby’s unsettled behaviour was also normal as newborns tend to cluster feed at day 2. Furthermore, the potential risk of introducing formula on milk supply was also highlighted. Overall, I believe that this case provided me with a great opportunity to critically think and develop my practice reasoning
One particular case was when a first time mother who intended to breastfeed, inquired about formula supplementation for her 2 day old newborn. Jessie (pseudonym) had a natural vaginal birth of a healthy 3.21kg baby boy at 41+2 weeks gestation. At the handover, it was noted that she had already asked other midwives about this prior and her request for formula was …show more content…
Hence, it is important to mitigate potential barriers to exclusive breastfeeding such as maternal percieved insufficient milk supply. Without sufficient support and knowledge, Jessie would’ve resorted to mix feeding or exclusive bottle feeding, causing premature cessation. I tried supporting and empowering Jessie by giving her information about the normal physiology or lactation and normative newborn behaviour so that she herself could understand the midwifery rationale against formula supplementation. Seeing that she was concerned about her breast being soft and that only small amounts of ‘milk’ (colostrum) was available, I advised her that this was normal; that the amounts of colostrum observed was sufficient to meet her baby’s needs and that her milk would come in in a couple of days. Her baby’s unsettled behaviour was also normal as newborns tend to cluster feed at day 2. Furthermore, the potential risk of introducing formula on milk supply was also highlighted. Overall, I believe that this case provided me with a great opportunity to critically think and develop my practice reasoning