I just got off the phone with a former client who watched The Show.  She
had quite a different - and, to me, reassuring - "take" on it all.

Her main reaction was confusion - what was she "supposed" to be feeling?
She didn't know much about Baby Friendly and so glossed over that part.
She never even noticed that the breastfeeding doc used a bottle - because
she herself had traveled with bottles of expressed milk for the first 10
weeks of her baby's life, when breastfeeding wasn't working.  (She was
amazed to realize she hadn't even noticed that part of the show because it
so closely matched her own early experience.  In fact, she saw the bfing
doctor's whole persona as that of any first-time mother overwhelmed with
motherhood, and didn't connect any of the erratic behavior with the fact
that she was breastfeeding.)

She thought the hospital must be a pretty poor hospital, because when her
own baby wasn't nursing well and initially wasn't gaining weight, her
medical people were having her come in every 2-3 days for a weight check.
There was simply no way he could have shrivelled up under their watchful
eyes;  why wasn't this facility doing the same?

The pump and dump advice made her think how *she* would just have called
*me* - but she assumed that for anesthesia temporary weaning might indeed
be necessary.

In all, she saw the show as pretty neutral, and "saw" most of the flaws
only as we talked about them.  (And her own baby?  He weaned at around 3
years old.  His speech therapists suspect that his nursing problems - not
well resolved until 2 1/2 months of age - were the first sign of the
neurological "loose wiring" that he is working on overcoming... and they're
pleased he was breastfed.  His mom is oh-so-glad she persevered, realizing
now how much good it did that he, especially, needed.)

Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC, LLLL, glad to have missed the show in Ithaca, NY