Did anyone get through the slog that was her breastfeeding video? It's tricky to know what is really true from her account of it, and maybe O does have a cows milk allergy, but regardless I noticed major Munchausens red flags from her narrative of it, and was shocked to find it follows the exact same pattern of her own health and relationship to professionals. It mirrors her past behaviour as a teenager and in her early 20s, then in her pregnancy and she's doing it to Oryn as we all predicted. Nothing is clinically wrong but Bryony has some ''concerns'' over mild/vague symptoms (most of which are just normal life - period pain, fatigue, nausea, low milk supply). She reaches out to professionals who confirm nothing is wrong, but reassure her they'll monitor it. She expresses frustration and seeks new opinions. She gets the attention / prescription she wants for a short time, the symptoms subside, and then the problem returns in a slightly different way and she seeks a new opinion.
The other major Munchausens red flags, by her own account:
a) All of his initial symptoms are mild, vague or within normal. She reports that numerous people over 12 weeks told her his latch was good, he didn't have tongue tie, his weight wasn't worrying, and she was recommended many times to feed and pump more to increase supply.
b) In the periods when his health/weight is stable and things are going well, she reports spontaneously feeling that'll something is wrong and seeks a new medical opinion. For a healthy baby with no concerning symptoms (by her own account), she sought opinions from multiple midwives, a private cranial osteopath, an online lactation consultant, a specific health visitor, a weigh-in clinic, La Leche League, a drop in breastfeeding class, her NHS GP, then a private GP to prescribe the meds she was previously refused. That's 10+ people. I know many specialists are involved in infant health but the concern for me is the deliberate shopping around for new opinions after multiple people had said O was healthy and had well established feeding.
c) It was when she reported being left unmonitored that O's symptoms dramatically worsen and he lost a large amount of weight quickly.
Other red flags are that the insinuated problem / his symptoms changed multiple times in her story. Initially, the latch, then her supply, then an allergy. I get they're all common issues but she blurs them into one. Also note she initially blames his latch being disrupted by a dummy, which she gave him at just a couple of days old because he was 'grisly' hungry and she needed to sleep. So even in the hospital she's admitting to feed-restrictive behaviour. She also says later he had symptoms she ''doesn't want to make public'' (as if the poor boy's health and very conception haven't been exploited for the past year and a half). To me, it's just a way to keep it vague and hide a potential lie. She knows cows milk allergies have more symptoms than just poor weight gain. But it's only his weight she can manipulate, so that's the only symptom she talks in depth about.
I'm sorry to say that I genuinely believe that she is/was feed restricting him. I don't think this is the last we'll hear about his allergy. As he gets older she will report more symptoms, seek more opinions, his symptoms will shift over time, then she'll need even more opinions and that's how it will keep going. He'll also be on whatever meds she chooses.
