Jacquie, I am the breastfeeding educator in a hospital maternity unit in Australia, and battle these same problems. I have tried three different solutions, with some success. Firstly, I designed big colourful posters "Truths and Lies about Breastfeeding" using down to earth language, and decorated by my two small daughters, so lots of primary colours and kids drawings, they are up on the wall of the waiting area in the ward, opposite the chairs, for the captive audience - and I often see people reading them. The second thing is we have 'nanna care' volunteers, these are grandmothers who come in and help out with the new mums, if they require assistance that we as midwives can no longer give, now we are required to be so task orientated,such as settling and bathing. I got these ladies on side, taught them heaps of practical and current stuff about breastfeeding, and I often see them chatting to family members saying 'I wish I knew all this when I was trying to breastfeed'. The last is I empower the mums in my postnatal breastfeeding class to be able to say to family and friends, 'no that isn't correct, we now know better', I suggest that they say 'you probably painted my cot with a lead based paint, but you wouldn't want me to do that', 'they used to build houses out of asbestos, but you would sack any builder who offered to do that for you now'. And also the handy reply to ' well I did it and your alright' - 'well not everyone that smokes gets lung cancer, but I'm sure you don't want me putting a cigarette in the baby's mouth!' Margaret Wendt RN RM and studying hard for July 26 *********************************************** 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(R) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html