"Care provided"

I attended the Geraldton Regional Hospital with my partner with our distressed baby. Our baby was around 9 weeks old and had been irritable for a few weeks. I had consulted lactation specialists and my usual GP. Being told possibly our baby had an intolerance and/or reflux. Our baby also had recently seen a dermatologist due to a rapidly growing birth mark in their nostril.

In the days leading up to going to ED, our baby was not latching in the breast or feeding well. they would arch their back and become agitated immediately when offered the breast and extremely unsettled whilst awake. The only time they wouldn’t be crying was when they were asleep. I expressed concern that their nappies had been less frequently wet as usual and their fontanel felt sunken. Our baby was clearly uncomfortable and upset on attending the department, also as parents we were upset also.

A junior clinician assessed our baby, they did a full body assessment. The scales to weigh our baby were not working so they weighed myself with our baby in my arms on the adult scales in ED and subtracted the numbers. According to that, our baby hadn’t gained weight for 2 weeks since their last routine check up. I felt this method was inaccurate but still raised alarm bells in my head. The junior clinician spoke to their senior and they came into the room to talk to us. They asked us again what we were concerned about. We explained the situation again. “Not feeding well”, “concerned the birth mark occluding their left nostril completely was causing discomfort and frustrations during breast feeding”, “less urine output and sunken fontanel”. The senior clinician had a quick look at our baby. I recall the clinician placed their finger in our baby's mouth, without PPE or washing their hands prior, to assess our their latch. I recall the clinician then continued to pull their mask down smiling at our baby. The clinician questioned if we had any support from family and we explained that unfortunately we don’t. They then proceeded to explain that our baby was medically well and all the 'numbers' are fine. I recall they explained that we have to smile more often as it’s important for the baby to see us happy. Our baby can feel that we are stressed. I believe the clinician's words were that the baby can feel it in our skin. Despite the fact our baby has been unsettled for majority of people that hold or try comfort them.

I instantly started to cry as I felt guilt that this situation was portrayed to be our fault. I packed our things and was appalled by the clinicians seemingly lack of empathy or compassion. They didn’t support me with my feeding or offer any support at all. We both left stunned and disappointed in the 'care' provided. Once again leaving with no answer as to why our baby was so unsettled, possibly dehydrated, potentially not gaining weight and not feeding well.

We were both not coping and I felt it was clear that we needed support. This was the complete opposite we received at the department. It seemed we were made to feel as if we were bad new parents and we were making our baby upset as we weren’t happy. I'm disappointed in this particular health professional's practice and appalled to think our mental health was not even acknowledged and we were left with a distressed baby with no answers.