>North America is not the only part of the world afflicted by certain words.
>Consider Australia and *Nursing* MOthers Association of Australia.
>
>I seem to recall (dimly, alas) that someone explained why this word was
>chosen rather than Breastfeeding at the inception of this wonderful
>organization.  Could whomever did that refresh my (and our collective)
>memory on this point?

I believe that the reason the NMAA was called this (Nursing Mothers'
Association of Australia, originally just Nursing Mothers' Association) was
because at the time, in the 1960s, the word 'breast' was not allowed in
print. So to get any publicity at all, the new association had to come up
with a name that was publicly acceptable, hence 'nursing'. In fact it now
causes much trouble with some people calling and thinking we are a
'nursing' service, ie they think Counsellors are RNs. In Australia, if
someone is 'nursing' a baby, it means holding it, cuddling it, etc, not
feeding it.

Changing the name of NMAA has been seriously discussed, but so far we have
decided not to, mainly because of how well-known we are, and we don't want
to have to work at doing it all again, as well as the financial cost that
would be involved. Instead we have compromised - we are now promoting the
Association as 'Nursing Mothers' - Australia's Breastfeeding Association'
on literature and on the phone, etc, so people will know what we are about.
Check out our web page: http://www.vicnet.net.au/~nmaa/ - it has recently
been updated.

It is interesting how people from different countries have different
connotations with words. To us in Australia, 'breastfeeding' is not
clinical at all, and 'nursing' is a word with too many meanings! When this
discussion occurred on Lactnet before, someone quoted their dictionary and
said that the word 'nursing' had the meaning of breastfeeding listed first.
Well, I looked up our official Australian Macquarie Dictionary, and
breastfeeding is listed as the 14th meaning, I think it was!!

I really don't think we will all ever agree on this issue, but now we have
such fantastic world-wide communication via the Internet, it will be
interesting to see how our language evolves - after all, the English
language is an ever-changing, living thing. Just look at all the new words
we now use just because of the Internet itself!

Joy (who has just returned from the fantastic NMAA International Conference
in Sydney. Listening to and meeting Kathy Dettwyler was certainly a
highlight. Sarah Coulter-Danner was great too.)

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Joy Anderson B.Sc. Dip.Ed. Grad.Dip.Med.Tech. IBCLC
Nursing Mothers' Association of Australia Breastfeeding Counsellor
Perth, Western Australia.   mailto:[log in to unmask]
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