Rachel, You said it sister! <<I will also venture a claim that institutions which condone and even promote such a bizarre view of the physiology of human birth are unlikely to encourage practices which support breastfeeding. So these babies whose chances of experiencing normal nutrition are already compromised, will be doubly compromised in the first hours and days after birth. It must be difficult to imagine how simple normal infant feeding is, if all the staff ever sees are babies born this way.>> I am a neonatal nurse and very much educated via nursing school and later "trained" in various jobs in the medical model. I am beginning to believe, as recent posters have stated, that the MFCI has got to take high priority over the BFHI, or we will get nowhere. Lucky that last step of MFCI is the BFHI, as of course it just follows naturally. I am embarrassed to say that I was not really enlightened about normal birth, not really knowing much about midwifery (almost nonexistent here), or homebirths, and having medicalized births; my OB was a high risk perinatologist; but have learned so much here on lactnet in the last several years. Recently, a mother at my hospital who arrived with a birth plan, refused to be separated from her baby, declined the baby's bath, etc. She was looked upon as a freak. I hope it will be better for my daughter. Laurie Wheeler, RN, MN, IBCLC Violet Louisiana, s.e. USA ________________________________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free E-mail from MSN Hotmail at http://www.hotmail.com *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html