As a hospital lactation RN, I agreee wholeheartedly with the frustration at being blamed for a mom "failing" at breastfeeding. My partner and I do the best we can with the situations we're put in, but it's really hard sometimes. Jo, as for removing maternal exhaustion from your hospital's list of reasons to supplement, I suggest you get your hands on Baby Friendly's list of acceptable medical reasons for supplementation and then get your hospital to incorporate it into a policy. I have it, but not on the computer. If you want to e-mail me your snail mail address, I'll send it to you. We too have that problem, but since our hospital decided to press on with going baby friendly, we've enjoyed the support of our supervisors. We are working (albeit at a frustratingly slow pace) to change the culture on our unit. I have had a fair amount of success by helping my peers to view artificial feeds as medicine with many potential side effects instead of a benign intervention to "help" the mother out. When a baby is supplemented, our policy now states that the RN must advise the mother that it is not medically indicated (unless it is) and must offer her alternatives to soothe the baby, as well as explain how the supplement can undermine breastfeeding and trigger unwanted medical side effects in the baby. We are by no means there yet, but we're taking baby steps. Marsha Walker's article "Just one Bottle" is a great one to use with nurses who view formula as benign. As for being blamed for failure, I don't know how to deal with that one. I'm convinced that there are women out there who really don't want to breastfeed, but, for some reason, want to be able to tell everyone they tried and couldn't. I haven't figured out how to know if this is true, it's just a feeling I get with some of the moms. I still give them my all, but my frustration level gets pretty high some times. Anybody have any ideas? Respectfully, Barb Fibich Milwaukee, WI *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html