I personally think that medical negligence is evident in all of your scenarios. I can't wait until someone sues (I've mentioned that before!) Yes, BF knowledge is abysmal in among health care professionals. Plenty of research to support that. Estok (1973); Hayes (1981); Crowder (1981) - mean knowledge score 53.2%; Lawrence (1982); Ellis & Hewat (1983); Reiff & Essok-Vitale (1985); Winikoff et al (1991); Anderson & Geden (1991); Lewinski (1992). There are others. These are the ones I abstracted for my thesis -which I haven't published. Freed has a few on drs. knowledge. My research (1994) - "Breastfeeding knowledge was assessed with 17 multiple choice questions and six alternate choice questions. The perinatal nurses could also choose "not sure". The test was scored by giving one point for each correct answer. Incorrect and "not sure" answers received no points. The mean number of correct answers was 12.07 (SD=4.03), with a range of correct answers from 3 to 23. The majority of the nurses (n=132, 55.2%) answered 12 orless questions correctly." The question I have - would this be tolerated in any other subject area? ie: could ICU nurses only answer 1/2 of their area specific questions, or diabetic specialists or oncology nurses. I think the answer is obvivously NO. They wouldn't be considered competent to practice in that area. But no one sees BF as important so perinatal nurses aren't held to the same standards. Wonderful fodder for discussion! Pat Young in SNJ, USA