Re: the breast reduction surgery - there was a documentary done in NZ about twelve months ago about women and "breasts" where one of the segments was on breast reduction. They took a volunteer to a plastic surgeon and discussed reduction. He drew how he would incise etc on the breast and one of the key points was doing it this particular way should protect future breastfeeding eg he avoided the nipple/areola area as much a s possible and was looking to remove largely fatty tissue.
Re Towels; there is a LLL Leader resource (article from Leaven) on helping large breasted women which mentions this amongst other techniques. I suspect this is an instance (that seems to happen too frequently round here) where a skilled lactation helper has used a technique along with positioning help etc which ahs helped a mother. Onlookers have seen the towel and suggested it to the next mother without understanding the whole picture. I had a spate of this happen when I had helped several unsettled low weight gain babies have apparently "miraculous" changes when I talked the mothers through foremilk/hindmilk imbalance, possible oversupply and "finish teh first side first". Next thing I hear is all mothers with slow weight gain babies being told to feed only on one side a feed by our child health nurses. They hadn't done the history of what was happening eg nappy count and couldn't understand why this new way didn't work for all babies! Sonja LLLL LOwer Hutt NZ PS Different LLL groups do reflect their different leaders and core groups but often it can be the genuine caring and ongoing "walking alongside" of a whole LLL group that can help mothers with long term problems get through. I agree with what others ahve said about getting this mother with the baby refusing to latch to share how she is feeling , if not in the whole group at least to the leaders so the group has a chance to "be there' for her.

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