Does anyone else see that pumps given
in the first few weeks or months, can often have negative effects?
said Michelle Scott

YES, ALL THE TIME.

After all, if you don't know how to ease the distressing situation a woman is
in, you want to give her something.  If you can't give her immediate "solutions"
(ARE there always immediate solutions?  NO.) to her difficulties, the temptation
is to give something.  A pump.  A nipple shield.  A supplement.  A technique to
practice.

Of course, sometimes these are appropriate and helpful things to give.  But, if
you don't have the judgement and the TIME to understand what is going on and you
have seen or heard that pumps, etc. can be useful (as a result of all the pump
advertising which appears in "breastfeeding friendly places", perhaps) then the
temptation is to *give* the mother something, even if you haven't really thought
through if it is going to help.

Hey, I've done it with the car.  When I hear a strange noise I have been known
to go to the car wash, add more oil, ask my husband to make sure everything
under the bonnet looks ok.  Then I hope, in a sort of haze of ignorance, that I
might have headed off some problem and avoided a trip to the garage.  And
sometimes it appears to work!!!!!  Sure, I KNOW that it is probably because the
noise was imagined or whatever, but its hard not to feel that I accomplished
something with a little attention.

Isn't this what a lot of magical practices, described by anthroplogists, are
designed to do?  For us, technology is a new magic.

Magda Sachs
Breastfeeding Supporter
The Breastfeeding Network