I'd like to thank Tina Smillie for her recent poston "baby-led" latch. So that's what you call what I've been a firm believer of for the past 25 years! I often get criticism from both LCs and nursing staff for not being hands-on enough. A mom and baby do not need an LC or staff nurse at the bedside for every single feeding. What will mom do once she's home? I've often had moms ask if they could take me home with them and I (laughingly) tell them they can't afford me. The act of nursing consists of 2 people - the mother and her baby. Everyone else (including the LC) is unnecessary. What is required of the people in the mom's life is HUGE doses of emotional support/reassurance. Something LLL has been preaching for years! Once mom has been educated on how to nurse (the mechanics) she must be left ALONE with her baby to practice. In the hospital setting, this means rooming-in 24/7. Over the years moms have told me that the help in the hospital was wonderful, but they wished they had just one feeding alone (without a nurse or LC hovering) in which to practice. I believe the focus should be on educating the mother on all normal newborn behaviors, not just feeding behaviors. I am looking into getting my staff NCAST (Nursing Child Assessment Satellite Training)trained. Their site is www.ncast.org. It really helps to round out your practice to have some training in developmental assessments and NCAST is a good one because one of the assessments is on the interaction between mother/baby during a feeding. Not only does the examiner learn a lot about where the baby is at, so does mom. Sorry for the long post, but I got so excited that someone else out there thinks like I do. Pam Hirsch, RN,BSN,CLC(UCLA-trained) Clinical Lead, Lactation Services Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital Barrington, IL USA *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] 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