Sigh-Annual appointment with OB

My OB/GYN never asked about nursing as a feeding choice, just as a note
on my chart. I figured it was pretty normal, his specialty is my
reproductive organs and my pregnancy not my feeding choice or really
anything else I did with the baby after he supervised her arrival.
Sadly most doctors don't get much BF info in their medical training. My
rheumatologist also gently encouraged me to quit "after all she got the
best benefits of it by the time she was 6 months old" and seemed
puzzled that I refused to wean her, opting instead to take a BF
friendly drug although it wasn't the best drug option (but a close
second). My daughter's pediatrician is a real breastfeeding advocate,
as I think they all should be.

What kind of rheumatology issues do you have? I'm trying to have info in my
mind as I'm seeing one next month to see if they can shed any light on the
instability in my pelvis, I really haven't a clue what on earth they might
say and was quite surprised that this was who my GP referred me too, but a
dr friend said that would have been his course of action too, so it must be
the right thing.

Anne

"Anne Rogers" wrote in message
...
It's probably one of those YMMV things - when DD was born I started to
work again 4 days a week when she was 16 weeks old and pumped twice a
day with my Isis on workdays, and usually in weekends once or twice as
well. Never had a problem with RSI and always managed to pump enough. I
get sore nipples easily and with the Avent I could vary the pressure
myself.
I started work today after DS's birth - he's 14 weeks. I plan to use
the Isis again, hope I'll manage once more. I usually pump about 400cc
in two sessions which more or less keeps up with what DS drinks when I'm
at work.

I suspect that normal is somewhere between the two of us, though from the
adecdotes I've heard, closer to my end of the scale. I'm glad I have an
Isis, but if money was a problem then I'd rather had just they Purely
Yours, which is about 3 times the price of an Isis rather than both. The
only reason I used the Isis this time around is because I had to lend my
purely yours rather urgently to a friend whose baby was in special care
and the hospital was being crap.

Anne

Ah, you're the perfect person to ask this question then! I plan to get a
Purely Yours if I decide I need an electric, but was wondering if they are
compatible with the Avent bottles. Can't seem to tell from any of the
supplier websites and can't find listings for adapters, so I'm not sure if
they are compatible out of the box, need an adapter, or not compatible at
all. I thought about the new Avent Isis IQ electric pump for ease of
compatibility until I saw the price...$350!

Strangely enough, one of DHs male coworkers told him I'd need an electric
pump because of the wrist/hand issue, which I had not thought of. We'll
have to see how it goes!

Amy

"cjra96" wrote in message

FWIW - my sister is an MD and hasn't had any problems taking 3-6 months
off. I have a PhD, I now work in local public health, but when I worked
in Academic science, there is no way I could take off more than 3
months - and that is pushing it. Different standards and requirements
in the field. It's actually a lot easier for an MD to move jobs than
an academic scientist.

I think it also depends where exactly you are in your career. I am an MD in
fellowship (post-residency) training in the US. I looked into taking some
extended time off and the graduate medical education people were very
discouraging. They said it was very unlikely that it would be approved by
the national board. If you take off more than one month in a year you have
to make it up at the end, which seems fair to me, and I will be making up
time as it is. But taking extended leave off is harder to accomplish beyond
the three months allotted by Family Medical Leave. At my program, I was
afraid to take even that much, which I later regretted. I think this may
vary based on the different national specialty boards.

I can understand their point to some extent. While being out for awhile may
not be as big of a deal when you have completed training, it does seem
problematic to interrupt the training process itself, but I still think the
system is not particularly considerate of families, particularly mothers.
My specialty (cardiology) has one of the lowest rates of female
practicioners in all of the medical specialties, even more than most of the
surgical specialties, and I think this may be part of it. The medical
profession has been slow to change with the times, but the fact is that
almost 50% of new doctors now are women. There is going to have to be some
adjustment. After long consideration, I decided to stick it out for the
remaining two years. I then plan to work part-time when I am finished. My
daughter will then be 2 1/2. This is not ideal, but the program did work
with me to make some (minor) scheduling adjustments which are a little
easier on us. Ultimately, this will give us better options down the road,
but it's hard now. It's tough that the prime childbearing years and the
years of medical training are the same.

Sarah
DD 3/1/05

"Sidheag McCormack" wrote in message
...
I'm not understanding why you're so insistent on the dreadfulness of
taking
a year out, if you don't have a specific example in mind. What's your
agenda here?

Why do you think I have an agenda? I just think it's logical that some
careers are difficult to interrupt for extended periods. As for examples,
I'll present the other posters' examples. You can dispute them.

"Sidheag McCormack" wrote in message
...
US, typically. Far more importantly, it isn't a one-chance or you're out
set up. I had been permanent for quite a few years before I got pregnant.
Having said that, I was also at a stage where had I been in the US I would
have already had tenure, so one way of looking at it: sure you can take a
year out if you're an academic scientist, you just have to wait until you
have tenure.

Some people can't wait to get tenure before having kids if they are older
and are afraid that they may be delaying to the point where getting pg is
going to be difficult to near impossible. If a woman is in her 30's, she
wouldn't want to wait to begin just in case there is difficulty getting pg,
so that there is more time for infertility treatments. I know on a personal
level, I did not want to begin trying any later than my mid-30's for that
reason. SIL was the same way. I work with other women who also share that
feeling, so in my circle, it is common to think along those lines.

In ,
medgirl wrote:

*
*I will cut a little slack for the 80+ year old attending that I work with
*occasionally who asked what my breast pump was - "What do you have in such a
*big bag?" When I told him, he said in his thick Italian accent, "Why do you
*not feed the baby directly?" I had to explain to him that 10-12 hours was a

Is it possible he wondered why you didn't just wear the baby on rounds, in
a sling? (I vividly recall one of my attendings doing just that during
my clinical year...)

-h.

--
Hillary Israeli, VMD
Lafayette Hill/PA/USA/Earth
"Outside of a dog, a book is a man's best friend. Inside of a dog, it is
too dark to read." --Groucho Marx

"Hillary Israeli" wrote in message
...
In ,
medgirl wrote:

*
*I will cut a little slack for the 80+ year old attending that I work with
*occasionally who asked what my breast pump was - "What do you have in
such a
*big bag?" When I told him, he said in his thick Italian accent, "Why do
you
*not feed the baby directly?" I had to explain to him that 10-12 hours
was a

Is it possible he wondered why you didn't just wear the baby on rounds, in
a sling? (I vividly recall one of my attendings doing just that during
my clinical year...)

Hmm - I didn't think of that. :-) As I was on a nuclear cardiology
rotation at the time, I can't imagine he would think I would bring a baby in
around those nuclear isotopes. But, no, I think the idea of a breast pump
for the working, nursing mother was just not something that had crossed his
mind before. If he's anything like my elderly Italian relatives, the
breastfeeding part makes a lot of sense - it's the pumping that is strange.

Sarah
DD 3/1/05

Ah, you're the perfect person to ask this question then! I plan to get a
Purely Yours if I decide I need an electric, but was wondering if they are
compatible with the Avent bottles. Can't seem to tell from any of the
supplier websites and can't find listings for adapters, so I'm not sure if
they are compatible out of the box, need an adapter, or not compatible at
all. I thought about the new Avent Isis IQ electric pump for ease of
compatibility until I saw the price...$350!

not compatible, though I'm not sure this is a problem, how do you plan to
store your milk? feed it? etc. I pump into the Ameda bottles, dump them into
a freezer bag, combining as necessary and feed from an Avent bottle, we
always fed from Avent even when I didn't have an Avent pump. But babies are
different, there is no reason to assume you would want to feed always from
Avent stuff.

Anne

medgirl wrote:

I think it also depends where exactly you are in your career. I am an MD in
fellowship (post-residency) training in the US. I looked into taking some
extended time off and the graduate medical education people were very
discouraging. They said it was very unlikely that it would be approved by
the national board. If you take off more than one month in a year you have
to make it up at the end, which seems fair to me, and I will be making up
time as it is. But taking extended leave off is harder to accomplish beyond
the three months allotted by Family Medical Leave. At my program, I was
afraid to take even that much, which I later regretted. I think this may
vary based on the different national specialty boards.

I can understand their point to some extent. While being out for awhile may
not be as big of a deal when you have completed training, it does seem
problematic to interrupt the training process itself, but I still think the
system is not particularly considerate of families, particularly mothers.
My specialty (cardiology) has one of the lowest rates of female
practicioners in all of the medical specialties, even more than most of the
surgical specialties, and I think this may be part of it. The medical
profession has been slow to change with the times, but the fact is that
almost 50% of new doctors now are women. There is going to have to be some
adjustment. After long consideration, I decided to stick it out for the
remaining two years. I then plan to work part-time when I am finished. My
daughter will then be 2 1/2. This is not ideal, but the program did work
with me to make some (minor) scheduling adjustments which are a little
easier on us. Ultimately, this will give us better options down the road,
but it's hard now. It's tough that the prime childbearing years and the
years of medical training are the same.


My sister took off more time when her kids were older (they're now
10,13,15) then when they were newborns - she had the first two when she
was a resident (her husband is also an MD). By the time they were
school age, she was comfortably established, and then in between jobs
when they moved for her husband's job. So taking off was no big deal.
Still, she never took more than 6 months. She did manage to do some
part time for awhile as well, but again that was later, after being
established in her career where she can negotiate.

toypup wrote:
"Sidheag McCormack" wrote in message
...
US, typically. Far more importantly, it isn't a one-chance or you're out
set up. I had been permanent for quite a few years before I got pregnant.
Having said that, I was also at a stage where had I been in the US I would
have already had tenure, so one way of looking at it: sure you can take a
year out if you're an academic scientist, you just have to wait until you
have tenure.

Some people can't wait to get tenure before having kids if they are older
and are afraid that they may be delaying to the point where getting pg is
going to be difficult to near impossible. If a woman is in her 30's, she
wouldn't want to wait to begin just in case there is difficulty getting pg,
so that there is more time for infertility treatments. I know on a personal
level, I did not want to begin trying any later than my mid-30's for that
reason. SIL was the same way. I work with other women who also share that
feeling, so in my circle, it is common to think along those lines.

As a 36 yr old first time mom who only finished her post-doc 1 yr ago -
and therefore if I'd decided to stay in academics, would be on the
assist. prof struggling to establish myself position right now, I
concur. I'm a little older than most of my cohorts in the US, but only
by a few years.

While it's possible for a US scientist to be ready for tenure by the
time they're 30, it's not THAT common. Bare Minimum:

22 Finish BS (4 yr uni)
27 Finish PhD (5 yr minimum, with no time off, no separate master's, no
delay in research...most people I know did 6 yrs)
29 Finish post-doc #1. If you're lucky you might manage to find an
asst. professorship at that point, but at least for awhile most people
did 2 post docs, so
31 Finish post-doc #2.
35 - final year push for tenure (this varies by uni, but most give you
5 yrs to establish tenure)

Even if you leave out that second post-doc, you're still into your 30s.
And if you did another degree as I did, or had a delay in research
because experiments didn't work, as I did, you're even older.

UK (based on many friends and colleagues in my field):
21 Finish BS (3 yr uni)
24 Finish PhD (3 yr program)
26/27 FInish Post-doc

Typically, at least IME, most 1st time lectureships are permanent
positions, as such theyr'e harder to get than an assistant
professorship in the US, which is not permanent. But it's possible. By
30 you're comfortably established in your career, with tenure and a few
years behind you.