"In this thread on whether successful, professional women have more
trouble adapting to breastfeeding's unpredictability, we have to watch
out for a "selection bias." "
I think Margaret has an excellent point here. I have found this thread to
be very interesting. Most of the women we see are "self selected," meaning
they come to us because they are seeking help. We have to be careful to
generalize our experience to the population at large, because this is a
select group. Does this mean that the women who do not seek us out are
doing just fine, discontinue breastfeeding or do not initiate breastfeeding?
I have my own "hunches" on this, but no evidence.
On the same note, in the last two places I have worked, we have seen a high
number of breastfeeding women who are engineers. They tend to want a lot of
structure, and are bothered that they don't know exactly how frequently
their baby will nurse or how many ounces they will receive. They also call
us frequently and seem to need lots of breastfeeding support.
Now, the question herein lies: Do we have enough evidence to say that
female engineers have this characteristic? I think not. We can only say
that these particular women who call in seem to need more support than other
women. To really know if female engineers are different, you would need
another group of women to compare them to, and control for numerous
variables. However, it is common for a nurse to roll her eyes and say
"she's an engineer" here. That seems to explain everything. I do think
women in general are becoming more empowered to read more and access the
health care system for their own benefit. To this, I say, more power to
them!
Linda J. Tandy, MSN, RN, CCM, IBCLC
Clinical Nurse Specialist
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