Had a similar experience and I came to believe part of the dad's* jobs is to act as a circuit breaker if you end up with a militant lactation consultant. Some seem to think guilt and browbeating new mothers will somehow get things to work. Then it's time to step in and suggest some one else or some other solution.
*Dad, partner, whoever. Just someone who isn't on a hormone induced emotional rollercoaster.
Not to disagree with your point, but to note: Fathers' hormones also change during pregnancy and postpartum. Most commonly known is that there is a slight decrease in testosterone. This is often suspected as being something to make the man a better caregiver.
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/15/parenting/baby/fatherhood...
What I find interesting is that our first didn't eat for TWO DAYS until we got that piece of silicone. It was recommended by the lactation consultant, but the hospital didn't stock them because they had a policy against assistive devices. It took two days because the lactation consultant didn't work weekends.
The hospital's view was essentially: Breastfeeding had to "just work" or else formula. Nothing in-between. Ultimately our kid was 90% breastfed with minimum supplemental formula, we also were able to move away from the Nipple Shield within a month. But yet things like Nipple Shields get fought even by some lactation consultants and many hospitals.
You can find numerous articles pointing out why they're bad, but in my view "fed is best" and by attacking assisted devices like they do, all they're indirectly doing is hurting mothers trying to breastfeed, many of which will give up, and just use formula (since they're essentially called bad mothers either for using assisted devices OR formula, so may have well lean into it).
When we had our second, he was a larger baby, and while we did need the shield, he only needed it for a week total. The different lactation consultant recommended "trying without" every time we met her even when it was self-evident it was ineffective.
TL;DR: Breastfeeding information, advice, and assistance is shit-tier in the US and is very hit-or-miss.
Most current bad policies in the US originate from wanting to be "Baby-Friendly Certified"[0]. For example MANY (most?) US hospitals have closed overnight nurseries in Labor & Delivery, so post-operative mothers cannot get better sleep which improved their recovery times and reduced risks of post-operative issues, this is from a bad reading of "Baby-Friendly" key clinical practices No.7. The problem is that third party certifying organizations have taken WHO's fairly commonsense ideas and run wild with them in order to make certifying a time-consuming and expensive process (and done tons of harm in the process).
The specific reason Nipple Shields are the current evil is Key clinical practices No.9 even though it directly contradicts Key clinical practices No.5, and worse No.9 doesn't actually forbid assistive devices, it is the intermediate organizations that have interpreted it that way.
Here's a quote from the below Wikipedia article:
> It questioned whether full compliance with the ten steps of the initiative might inadvertently lead to the promotion of potentially hazardous practices and/or counterproductive outcomes. Specific concerns described in this paper included increased risk of sudden unexpected postnatal collapse, rigidly-enforced rooming-in practices leading to exhausted or heavily medicated mothers caring for newborns, and an unnecessary ban on pacifier use.
Keep in mind this isn't some government initiative nor is the WHO really responsible for many of the US specific problems. This is for-profit US hospitals competing against one another to appear superior, while actually creating situations where both mothers and babies get worse care in the process (and the financial savings of not having on-site nurseries, is likely a huge bonus).
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baby_Friendly_Hospital_Initiat...
Nursing mothers need capable nutritionists as well as lactation consultants. The advantage of crone women in the family assisting is that they usually have a history of all related women and the various births in their heads. Women usually went back to their mothers’ home after seventh month of pregnancy and stayed there for at least 6-12 months post birth.