"Breastfeeding not enabled or supported well enough"

We were admitted to Castle Mey after our 9-week old infant became ill. She had a high temperature and we were sent to a&e at the Royal. There is a lot of good on the unit - doctors and nurses are dedicated to high standards of medical care. I found everyone to be polite and caring. Tests were explained well and results shared quickly. There was an infant feeding advisor who was great. Play specialists were very kind. 

However there were also issues with our stay.

1) We felt breastfeeding is not enabled or supported well enough on Castle Mey ward. There are no breastfeeding friendly chairs, and beds do not go close enough to a wall to enable you to lie back and feed. I understand the need to ensure patient safety and the layout of the room furniture. However, at a time of trauma and illness, ensuring the child receives enough milk should also be given high priority. Allowing safe bed sharing and ensuring good practice could allow mothers to co sleep and breastfeed at night much more easily. It could also allow for mothers and children to continue to sleep as they have chosen and are used to. People could end up bed sharing unsafely and this could easily be avoided.  Having an environment that made breastfeeding so uncomfortable seems bizarre given the well known benefits of breast milk and NHS Lothian's guidance on supporting breastfeeding. We were told that the bottles you express milk into are discarded - again, this seems bizarre when bottles can be sterilised and are sterilised for the mother to use again.

2) If it is ward policy that children are given 24 hours of antibiotics, then deemed non-infectious and moved to a bay in a ward, we feel this policy should be communicated to parents from the start and not sprung on a carer who is then expected to move at short notice. Ensuring this pathway is clearly communicated could allow for concerns to be addressed - it was only after I requested to speak to a certain member of staff that I was able to discuss the fact that I (mum) was also sick and so should not be put into a ward with other children.