Betsy commented on the Time.com article:
 

"Just  try harder" my ass. Have you EVER said that to a mom?  Cheezewhiz.>>
 
Betsy, that was funny!  But I have to say -- yes, it is said to  mothers 
frequently.  Just yesterday I had a mom in my office  -- the baby wasn't 
gaining fast enough, according to the pediatrician, and  what she was told by a 
number of people, including a couple of "LCs" is, "you  just aren't trying 
hard enough."  Now -- did they say that in those  words?  I don't know -- but 
that is what the mother HEARD them say.   How many moms are told (by 
someone), "you have to wake the baby and feed her  every two hours" and then when 
they find that an impossibility -- they get the  message, "you just need to 
try harder."  This mom said to me, "I feel like  such a failure!"  But she 
had gotten such mixed messages -- opposite  messages often -- from the 
medical/lactation community, that she had never  learned to trust her own common 
sense or her baby's cues.  SHE wasn't a  failure -- she had been failed by the 
collective "us".  
 
I had another mom that was sent home from the hospital -- baby wasn't  
latching.  I asked her what going home advice the hospital LCs had given  her -- 
I like to work in concert with advice they have been given if at all  
possible, or explain my rationale for giving different advice -- and she said,  
"They told me to just keep trying."  
 
So it does happen -- more often than we would like to think.  
 
I agree with Nancy Wight.  I liked the article -- thought it a good  wake 
up call for all of us -- and I would hope that the people that NEED to read  
it, do.  We need to be careful we aren't giving moms  unrealistic directions 
which set them up for failure or for thinking  they aren't trying hard 
enough because they can't do what we told them to  do.  
 
So, while none of "us" may tell a mom, "just try harder" -- someone  is. 
 
Jan Barger, RN, MA, IBCLC, FILCA
Lactation Education Consultants 

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