Jennifer Tow wrote:

"Maintaining the credential may do as much harm to breastfeeding as  
the “childbirth education” model has done to childbirth. It was co- 
opted by hospitals, became inculcated into the medical model and gave  
women a false sense of their own level of preparedness and ability to  
make choices in birth. I don’t think it needs to be fixed—I think it  
needs to be torn down and rebuilt with a new premise—-with normal  
physiological processes as the compass and a commitment to protect  
them in an honest, ethical and educated way as the framework for a SOP."

I agree (and I think we all do) that supporting normal physiological  
processes should be the cornerstone of our practice.  But I would  
like to see us use the infrastructure already in place in order to do  
this.  We need to make sure that IBCLCs are educated appropriately  
and be very careful of who can earn this credential.  At the same  
time, we need to support the young breastfeeding advocate in becoming  
an excellent IBCLC.

To me, saying we need to tear down the current system and rebuild it  
from the ground up is the same as saying that we should just blow up  
the world and rebuild it from scratch so that it can be the way we  
want it.  Obviously we are not going to do that.  What we are doing  
instead is helping mothers and babies one at a time.  I want us to  
help doctors, IBCLCs, hospitals, society, etc, one person at a time.   
I respectfully ask you to consider this idea.  I am afraid that  
otherwise the public will get the message that we breastfeeding  
advocates just don't know what we are doing with all this alphabet  
soup of LLL, CLC, IBCLC, LE etc.  IBCLC is just starting to be  
recognized -- let's keep up that momentum but mold the process along  
the way.  At the very least, none of us want to waste our money and  
our effort in gaining and maintaining our credential -- so let's  
not.  Let's take back the credential and work towards making it mean  
what we want it to mean.

Respectfully,
Lynnette Hafken, IBCLC, RLC
             ***********************************************

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