Hothouse, Postpartum—Part 1

I arrived at Amy’s house just a few minutes after hanging up the phone.  I brought my house-call bag with me out of the car, but I didn’t think I would need much to examine Henry, who was about a week old.  He had been full-term, and was doing everything right.

Before the baby, Amy was a working professional, very smart and with a good sense of humor.  This is often an important coping skill.  It can also be an important tool for parents who bring their children to me.  I often have to remind them that:  ‘Just because you are sick or in pain doesn’t mean I can’t make fun of you.’  It’s a coping mechanism for me too, of course.  I try to help parents see the humor or absurdity in themselves and what their kids do.  But, I suppose like all humor, it doesn’t play to every audience.  The families who appreciate my point of view know that when needed I can slip quickly into the role of a serious doctor.  Sometimes it’s hard for me to tell what’s needed.  Being happy is often infectious, so staying upbeat can bring somebody up.  But being unrealistically optimistic can make a depressed person doubt your sincerity and simply not trust that you understand how they are seeing the world.

The phone conversation with Amy started in a typical way.  She had some concerns about breastfeeding, especially wondering if the baby was getting enough.  This was the most common question that new mothers asked, and I explained that we can be reassured if the baby is gaining weight and having lots of wet diapers.  If he’s growing and peeing, and not sneaking out for snacks when she’s not watching, he must be getting it from her.  That was the ‘gold-standard’ for determining breastfeeding success.  She bought that reasoning. 

But when she asked the real question, which she tried to hide in the words of an innocent question, alarms developed over my years of experience started ringing.  She asked if I thought she’d still be breastfeeding in 6 months.  And added, quietly, “if he’s still…here.”

Though nobody wants to bring it up, every parent has dark fears.  I think we all do about people we love and depend upon.  The inconceivable loss looms, we all know, above us too distant to see clearly.  But we know it’s always there, hidden in tragic news stories that happen to other people.  We’d all be in trouble, however, if we fixated on this instead of going about our daily tasks.  A couple came to interview me to see if they wanted me as their doctor.  They had just moved from Florida with their baby, and I was making pleasant conversation.  I asked why they moved.  They said they had stayed through a couple of hurricanes last year.  That was enough, they said.  They had a child now, so they moved here to the Bay Area so they didn’t have to cope with the constant threat of a natural disaster. I told them I would be happy to have them in my practice.

The dark thoughts are there, lurking deep in the background.  We might know how fragile babies are, but good parents shove these concerns to a back burner while they focus on feeding the kid and making sure they don’t run out of diapers. 

It’s natural to wonder if the baby is getting enough.  It’s natural, even, to worry about it.  If the baby isn’t getting enough, he might not gain weight well.  He might even lose weight.  He might—heaven forfend—have to get formula.  Most parents who have these concerns are genuinely worried.  They might or might not realize that these concerns are sometimes out of proportion to the actual risk to the baby.

I tell parents that they should never tell a child who’s getting a shot that it won’t hurt.  Shots do hurt, at least a little.  A smart child will immediately reach the correct conclusion that either you didn’t know that shots hurt or that you knew and lied about it.  Either way, you’ve lost credibility.  Sadly, you’ve also lost the credibility to comfort the child afterward.  In this way, I do not try to hide or gloss-over my concern for a baby that doesn’t gain weight as expected.  I try to take a measured and reasonably algorithmic approach, however.  It doesn’t scare me, and I have a lot of experience and knowledge.  If one thing doesn’t work, we’ll try another.  I will not give up.  When I’m concerned, I tell the parents and then do something about it.  Having a plan, indeed a whole decision-tree of analytical approach to uncertain events, can be a crucial tool in the management of complex problems and the anxiety these provoke.

But I knew, and she knew, that Henry was gaining weight just as expected.  The nursing was going well.  As described in the last post, she had not expected the appearance of her breasts to change.  I felt bad that I hadn’t expected this either—at least not overnight.  I had not warned her of this possibility.  At first, I thought she was concerned if her baby was getting enough, so I reassured her about that.  Then it appeared her concern was that her breasts no longer seemed to appear full, and she was worried that this might be a sign of a problem with her milk supply.  I reassured her about this, too.  One by one, I asked her about her concerns, and one by one I dealt with them in the best way I could figure.  Seriously, thoughtfully, and, I hoped, kindly.  On the phone, I thought I was getting her past this buzzing cloud of anxiety.  I didn’t expect her to ask if the baby was going to survive.  For that, there was no answer on the phone.

I know about the dark places.  But I can’t make them go away.  If they are prominent in the moment to moment thoughts we need to have to get through our daily tasks, they interfere with doing what we need to do.  They sometimes interfere with what our children need.  They always interfere with what we need.

I didn’t ask what she meant when she asked if I thought the baby would still be there in 6 months.  I just got her address and told her I’d be there in a few minutes.  I didn’t ask her permission.  I didn’t ask if it was a convenient time, or if there was somebody else she could call.  This was not a time to be afraid to step up to the plate.  I stopped briefly in the supermarket across the street.  I bought a small serving of macaroni and cheese (usually quite bland at the place near my office) and a small amount of freshly cut-up watermelon.  I went to her house.  That’s coming up in Part 2.