I missed most of the recent flare-up on lactnet, but reading other posts
makes me realize that "packaging" is becoming increasingly important to us
as our group becomes more diverse.

When we talk with a mother, we don't simply hand her a wad of information.
We "package" it according to her situation, her knowledge base, her
fragility.  It takes time and care to wrap our information in a way that's
both understandable and palatable, especially since the packaging changes at
least a little with every mother.

In La Leche League, Leaders with questions about a particular mother's
situation have a more knowledgeable group of Leaders they can ask, but
they're expected to do the asking themselves, then relay the information to
the mom.  This saves a whole lot of administrative time.  The "Professional
Liaison" person, as she's known, can pass the information quickly in "raw"
form to the Leader, and the Leader then takes the time to package it in a
way that she feels will be helpful to that particular mother.  (How much
simpler and faster to discuss, say, the pros and cons of Prozac with someone
who *isn't* the one considering taking it!)

At first, Lactnet was pretty much a "raw information" forum.  We were all on
virtually the same page, and "packaging" wasn't all that necessary.  Indeed,
it was a great relief not to *have* to package, since we did so very, very
much of it in our work.  We'd ask a question, get some responses, and move
on.  (I remember how tickled I was to get 4 brisk and utterly different
responses to one of the first questions I asked.  Not even the experts knew
everything!  I wasn't so ignorant after all!  But I was tickled rather than
bewildered or hurt because all I wanted or needed was raw information.)

Now, we have people who've been LCs for many years but also LLL Leaders who
are just drying the ink on their first Leader card, the occasional mother
who lurks because she's having ongoing nursing problems, nurses who are just
beginning to realize how much breastfeeding information exists, people from
other disciplines entirely, and on and on.  What one might construe as "raw"
information bluntly and efficiently delivered, another may see as a flame
because it didn't take the time and trouble to respect the recipient's
possibly very different perspective.

According to some sources, we can *really know* only about 250 people.
There are ten times that many on lactnet.  And so I think it's become
important to spend more time on packaging.  Of course, if we make a point of
*not* packaging, we can quickly whittle that number back down.  But I don't
think that's what we want...

Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC  Ithaca, NY
www.wiessinger.baka.com

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