In a message dated 4/10/2002 3:11:06 PM Central Daylight Time,
[log in to unmask] writes:


> I would be troubled if I feared that my husband might take action to prevent
> another man from touching my breasts or indeed my genitals, no matter what.
> I might feel that he saw certain parts of my body in a proprietary way, and
> for me that would confer nothing positive.

Well, I smiled at this posting.  My husband is a kind and gentle soul...much
more so than I.  :-)  Some couples simply feel that God meant for only the
husband and wife to have contact with the intimate parts of one another's
bodies.  Just because they feel this way deeply in their souls and live by
that conviction by firmly declining care from the opposite gender does not
infer that they are wrongly possessive of one another.  Is this how we as
professionals will view people who would be offended at the notion of a male
L&D nurse or a male IBCLC?

I think it is our duty as health care professionals to be mindful of others
and their personal convictions and levels of comfortability without making
judgment about those convictions.  My concern is that we are placing women in
a position of *having* to say "no" by asking if it is okay with them to have
a male help with breastfeeding and possibly touch their breasts in the
process.  Since we have built up the medical professionals in our culture as
almost demi-gods, I think we should be aware that saying "no" is MUCH harder
for most people (especially women) than we admit.

Women have the right to have anyone they want examine them.  If they are
comfortable with a man doing so, that is certainly their prerogative.  I
think it would only be fair though to give the same level of respect to those
women who do care what the gender is.  My concern is that slowly we will
allow this field of breastfeeding to be open to male experts as well as women
and this will make it just another medical subspecialty (as I think Diane
pointed out in an earlier post) instead of a unique area of health in which
ONLY women can function with experiential knowledge.

Jessica Harrison Carlyon, MBA, CD, CLE

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