Kim, Realistically, with 500-600 births a year, I doubt if you could justify 24/7 LC coverage in today's world. That's less than 2 births per day and an average of 4-5 moms on the unit at a time. Depending on your personal life outside the hospital, the ideal schedule would be to spread out your 20 hours to 2-3 per day (which would give you no days off!-not really practical). Less stressful on you, but still allowing you to see most moms at least once would be to come in every other day. When the nurses ask for 24/7 are they expecting you to do all the breastfeeding teaching? help every mom with the first (or every) nursing? Staff nurses should be able to give the assistance and education needed for "routine" breastfeeding (to the extent it is ever routine). The LC would be there to help and work out care plans when nursing isn't "routine". I firmly believe it is helpful to touch base with every nursing mom. This isn't necessarily to cover what the nurses should be teaching, but to clear up any questions, give advice/help when needed and to let the moms know what help is available if needed after discharge. I think mom is much more likely to call with concerns when she can put a face with the phone number. We would often have a mom call and ask for the LC who saw her in the hospital, but in most cases was perfectly willing to talk with whoever was there for the day. When one is the "lone" LC, it is important to have some kind of backup. This can be a "pool" LC (sometimes called "per diem"), LC from a sister hospital or whatever. I knew one LC who was the only one and she was never allowed to take a vacation, attend workshops or conferences, etc. because there would be noone to do her job if she wasn't there! Often, LCs in your situation, if they are also RNs are asked to wear both hats. While this may be better than no LC, it has many problems. Often, the greater the need for LC help, the less non-nurse time the LC has to meet those needs! Nursing duties take precedence over LC duties, often to the detriment of the moms needing help. Good luck. Winnie *********************************************** 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(R) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html