I agree that there are always going to be parents who are given accurate
information but choose not to believe it. What I see more of however, is
parents who haven't been given accurate information to start with (or no
information at all), and who are then very upset when they do get the right
information. They all have the same question: "Why didn't anyone tell me?".
I find that most parents will believe whatever information their health care
provider gives them, because "they're supposed to know". Health Care
Providers *are* supposed to know, but many of them don't know much of
anything when it comes to breastfeeding, and that is what I find frustrating. 

With breastfeeding initiation rates as high as they are, I believe that
health care providers have a responsibility to make sure they are educated
enough about the topic to help the mothers and babies they are seeing. I'm
willing to bet to that if 80% of the mothers that doctors are seeing
presented with some illness that hadn't been seen for a while, the doctors
would be reading whatever they could to educate themselves, it would be the
topic of conferences etc. Perhaps it's because breastfeeding is "natural"
that many health care providers aren't interested in learning more. These
days however, with the loss of community and the fact that many women have
never seen another woman nurse her baby, breastfeeding problems are becoming
more and more common, and health care providers need to be educated (we also
need better community support etc). It's certainly not just the doctors
either. I see a lot of breastfeeding problems that could have been prevented
if the obstetrical nurses had been better educated. 

I'm not saying that the fault is entirely with the health care providers,
although I do feel that they should take responsibility for their own
learning if they are seeing a lot of something and know that their education
needs improving. Part of the problem is the fact that there isn't enough
education or emphasis on breastfeeding when health care providers are at
school, and there have been several studies that have shown that the
breastfeeding information in nursing textbooks is inaccurate or out of date.
Looking back at when I first starting working as a nurse and was working in
obstetrics, I'm amazed at how limited my breastfeeding knowledge was, and
yet a big part of my job was helping moms to breastfeed! 

For those of you who have managed to improve the knowledge and/or attitudes
of the health care providers that you work with, how did you go about it?

Warmly,
Fleur Bickford BSc., RN, LLLL
Ontario, Canada

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