Two thoughts about Becky's issue of what is taught in prenatal classes about epidurals and breastfeeding: (1) If there really isn't much research/evidence, then not only do we not know for sure if epidurals adversely impact breastfeeding, we ALSO don't know if epidurals are neutral or advantageous with respect to breastfeeding. It seems it is up to the people proposing the INTERVENTION -- with all of its potential side-effects, including longer labor, and everything that might happen when you stick a big needle into someone's epidural space (death, paralysis, infection, leaking CSF, headache, etc. etc. etc.) -- to show that the medical benefits to the mother outweigh the risks to the mother and the baby. The mothers certainly, ethically, have the right to know the risks, including the right to know that epidurals have never been shown to be safe for babies. And they have the right to know that __% of the clinical lactation professionals on LactNet, the largest email list for such people, have observed that babies whose mothers have had epidurals often have difficulty figuring out how to breastfeed. Parents have the right to know about Righard's research and to see his video on "Delivery, Self-Attachment." Parents have the right to know (as Rachel Myr has pointed out so eloquently in this forum) that epidurals seem to make less difference *IF* the hospital has lots of IBCLCs to support the mother and the hospital is dedicated to breastfeeding. And parents have the right to know what kind of a hospital it is they are delivering in. Can the anesthesiologists at your hospital provide evidence that the breastfeeding rates at, say, one month, are the same in women who had epidurals vs. those who did not? Or among different types and lengths of epidural anesthesias? To sum up that long-winded paragraph -- it should be up to the anesthesiologists to provide the research you can cite to parents in prenatal class showing NO ADVERSE EFFECTS OF EPIDURALS ON BREASTFEEDING AT THEIR HOSPITAL. It should not be up to you to have to prove that an intervention causes harm. (2) The American Academy of Pediatrics, in conjunction with Johnson and Johnson, hands out the J&J video "Amazing Talents of the Newborn." You can buy it from their web site for $12.50. I highly recommend showing this video to parents in prenatal classes. The babies shown in the video do all sorts of cool and amazing things in the first days/weeks of life. The babies in the video are all the result of unmedicated births. Heck -- show this video to the anesthesiologists and the ob/gyns and the neonatalogists and ask them how many of the babies they deliver to epidural moms act this way? Probably the anesthesiologists, who only come around during labor itself have NO CLUE about how normal undrugged newborns are supposed to behave. Ask them, why do they think Johnson and Johnson filmed babies from unmedicated births, if epidurals have no effect on babies? End of middle-of-the-night rant. Kathy Dettwyler _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.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