Hilary, as regards your post on Lactnet about semantics (speclling of 'breastfeeding'):
    A lot depends on the dictionary. Although my primary profession is writer and my second is IBCLC (from 1985), I later did training as an ESL / EAP teacher and have taught overseas students and immigrants, including prep. for entry to university and college courses.  So, applied linguistics and word usage are one of my areas. There is a trend away form hyhenating words, either towards combining them as a single word or making them two words.  With breastfeeding, it was postulated (by whom I forget, possibly LLLI, but it doesn't matter who was 'first' and when) that 'breastfeeding' is a basic physiological action, like 'heartbeat', and should similarly be a single word.
   When I wrote the first edition of my first book, Successful Breastfeeding, published in Sydney in 1974, I spelt it in the text with a hyphen, 'breast-feeding', as this was what the dictionaries I consulted used.  However, the publisher brought the book out with 'breast feeding' (2 words) on the cover, to my annoyance.  The next edition came out with the hyphenated form, consistently.  with a new publisher.  Somewhere down the track, the 2nd publisher, ABA, decided on a publications policy of single word, no hyphen, and so later editions spelt it 'breastfeeding'.  When my second book, with Hyland House Publishing, came out, a decision was made that spelling was to be as per the Macquarie Dictionary, by then becoming an Australian standard reference.  At that time, 1984, my Oxford Pocket Dictionary used the hyphen, but the Macquarie spelt 'breastfeeding' as a single word.
   As these examples suggest, a lot of the differences in spelling that you have seen are due to in-house publications policy.  You will find this with some journals.  In my writings I spell it as a single word, but occasionally an editor has inserted a hyphen.  Most journals where I publish happen to have the same spelling policy as I have.  My American spell check on my computer always marks 'breastfeeding' as a misspelling as the standard on that spell check is (from memory) the hyphenated form.
    I hope this answers your question.  It doesn't matter what it's called (BF, Susu, or what) and how it's spelt, it is the same thing.
          Virginia
           in Brisbane

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