I just checked the National Sexual Assault Hotline and their statistics 
indicate that 1 in 6 women have been sexually assaulted.  I am curious about 
the scope of this problem.  Could the people that have identified this as a 
problem please tell us the number of hospital assaulted women you see in a 
year and the total number of clients you see in a year?  Rachel Wahl RN 
IBCLC

>Date:    Sat, 29 Jul 2006 22:17:01 EDT
>From:    Pamela Mazzella Di Bosco <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: using the word rape
>
>Rape is a strong word.  It is an act of violence. It is criminal  offense.
>It is most often against women.  The feelings are deep,  lifelong and 
>painful.
>Years later you can talk about the experience and  feel the same emotions,
>the fear, the helplessness.
>
>Okay, now find me another word that is exactly as strong to call what is
>happening to women in birth and breastfeeding 'help' in hospitals and I 
>will use
>it. I could use a word to offer them so they can put a name to  it. When I 
>am
>talking to women, they are crying and the words they use are  fear, pain,
>helplessness, overpowered, defeated, degraded.  Some of these  women have 
>been
>raped, they recognize the feelings well.  I think we do  need to pay 
>attention
>to what is happening to women today because it is hurting  them and hurting
>their babies.  We need to remember our statistics about  women and abuse 
>and
>assume the women we are working with have likely suffered  some form of 
>abuse and
>proceed with utmost respect and gentleness.  The sad  thing, many women 
>just
>assume this type of treatment was necessary, and to add  to their other
>feelings they also feel guilt for feeling the way they do about  something 
>that just
>had to be done to them....it was for their own good, for  their babies own
>good, and they should not be so upset about it.  How wrong  is that for a
>woman...to feel so wrong at a time in her life when she should  feel so 
>wonderful?
>
>I understand we want to reserve certain words for what they are meant  for.
>But inappropriate touch is not a strong enough expression of what  happens 
>and
>it certainly does not meet the emotions it brings up in the women  who
>experience it.  The original post said the 'mother' used this word  to 
>express what
>it felt like.  She is not the first.  I have had  mothers use that word to
>describe how they felt, I have used it when I hear the  story shared and 
>the
>mother acts like it was all her fault....and she  should have done more to 
>stop
>it, and if only she wasn't doing 'fill in the  blank'....so much like a 
>rape
>victim blaming herself for the violence  against her.  Maybe the mom didn't 
>use a
>word we like, but it was her  word, her feelings, and what we should be
>talking about is not how wrong  that word is, but how horrible that it is 
>how a new
>mother felt when being  helped to feed her baby.
>
>Take care,
>Pam MazzellaDiBosco, IBCLC, RLC
>Florida
>
>
>              ***********************************************
>

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