Finally a moment to catch up on some of the responses I have been meaning to answer and haven't had the time to because my arms were fully of baby.
Monsieur Sommelier wrote:
I've lost count of the times I've heard mothers and midwives remind docs that childbirth is a natural part of life and not a medical condition. Of course, a C-section changes the laboUr part of things, but so long as the Mom is recoving well from surgery, the golden rule applies - Mother does know best.
Both of my kids were C-section, and on both occasions I had to argue with Doctors for Mrs Nobby's wishes to be taken into account. Sure, if there's a life-threatening condition, that's different, but a touch of jaundice is perfectly natural.
Anywho . . . Glad you're all home together.
Exactly. Especially in breastfed babies, because it does take a few days for the milk to come in, and especially in breastfed babies of c-section moms, whose milk takes even longer to come in. The doctors were all over the place with this--first it was the jaundice, then it was that he wasn't producing enough diapers for their satisfaction, then it was that he had lost a little more of his birth weight than they were comfortable with--none of these conditions was emergent in the slightest, and just needed a little time to get past. Mostly, all it needed was for me to have him on the breast as much as possible to get my milk to come in.
Had I had the out-of-hospital birth I had intended, it would never have been an issue. But once we were in their hands, we were stuck--they basically blackmailed us into not checking out AMA by telling us it was likely our insurance wouldn't cover any of the hospital's services if we left AMA. Thus was my baby held hostage for two extra days and shut up in a brightly lit box away from me. Because, y'know, the best way to get a new mother's milk to come in is to allow her baby only 20 minutes in her arms every 3 hours. Grrrr....
Amazingly, the birth itself wasn't the horrid hospital experience I had expected, but the aftermath...oy!