Karleen writes,

> So here's the question again? Do you want greater professionalism of the
> IBCLC or fewer women who need an IBCLC. Unless you are very careful about
> how it's gone about the two may be mutually exclusive. Again, I have no
> vested interest in this except my interest in seeing breastfeeding
> normalised!
>
>
Great post, Karleen -- and I will agree w/ you.  Just as soon as childbirth
is normalised, then breastfeeding will be too -- but the chicken, in this
case, has to come before the egg.  And as long as childbirth remains in the
hands of the medicos, and is treated as a disease, then women will need the
professionals to get them out of the problems w/ breastfeeding.

I know many of you have heard my tale a bazillion times, but for you who are
new to Lactnet and/or don't know me, here it is again:  In the deep dark
recesses of my checkered nursing past, I helped develop and was the head
nurse (coordinator??) of the Family Birthing Center at Providence Hospital in
Southfield, MI.  This was an OUT OF HOSPITAL birthing center -- not the units
that are referred to as "birthing centers" now.  It was a true alternative
birthing center, following along in the steps of Booth in Philadelphia, and
the Maternity Center in NYC.  We opened in 1979.  Our motto was that we were
an alternative to HOME birth -- not an alternative to the hospital.  And
therein lay our strength.  Anything you could do at home, you could do at the
birthing center.  Anything you could NOT do at home, you couldn't do in the
FBC -- you had to be transferred to the hospital -- such as fetal monitoring,
anything except minor medications during labor (and they were far and few
between).  IV s we did if necessary, because you can do those at home.
Pitocin we didn't do (at least for induction/stimulation) since it required a
fetal monitor.  Epidurals?  HAHAHAHA!  That's what the staff was for -- we
were doulas.

OK, why all this as an intro?  Simply to say that in the 3 years I was there
before moving to Chicago, we saw virtually no problems w/ breastfeeding.
Babies latched on shortly after birth and amazingly enough did what God
designed them to do -- stimulate oxytocin and clamp down the uterus.  One of
our most sceptical OBs was fond of telling everyone who would listen (after
he was converted) that the moms who delivered in the birthing center had less
postpartum bleeding than moms who delivered in the hospital and had
postpartum Pitocin.

After I moved to the Chicagoland area, I found more and more moms having
problems.  As the numbers of interventions during labor have increased, I've
found even more.  I naively thought when I first went into lactation as a
profession in 1985 that I would be out of a job in 5 years -- 7 years max.
Here I am, not only seeing more and more mothers & babies w/ problems, but
teaching more and more aspiring lactation consultants.  As the medicalization
of childbirth has increased, so has the need for qualified lactation
consultants that understand the HOWs of getting babies to breastfeed.  It
isn't as simple as "just do it."  There's a lot more to it than that.  It has
become a NEEDED profession -- WHY?  Because those that run the childbirth
arena have made it so.  WHY have they made it so?  Because the empowering of
women that comes with birthing babies naturally has been taken away from them
through fear mongering of how dreadful having a baby is -- and why should you
ever experience pain w/ childbirth when you can have childbirth w/o pain.

Someone, in another recent post (sorry, don't remember who it was that made
this incredibly profound statement) said something about mothers seem to be
distancing themselves from their babies.  I believe it wholeheartedly -- and
I blame the medical establishment and the advent of epidurals and painless
childbirth.  Twilight sleep did the same thing in the 50's.  Anything that
distances the woman from her birth experience either psychologically or
physiologically will distance the mother from her baby.

I say that carefully and advisedly, because I don't want to get flamed by the
women that had to have a C/Section or an epidural for a medical reason and
feel as though they haven't bonded properly.  I'm not saying that at all.
I'm grateful those tools are there, just as I'm grateful we have formula for
those who need it, and crutches for those who have sprained ankles, and
wheelchairs for those who are paraplegics.

I am saying that based on my years of experience in L&D, a true birthing
center, personal experience of three births (1 of which was medicated; one of
which was unmedicated in a hospital, and one of which was at home), as a
lactation consultant, and one of the gray hairs (I think -- I've bleached my
hair for so long I haven't a clue as to the real color) who has been around a
very very long time and has seen what the medical establishment has done to
birth, breastfeeding, and parenting.

There are many problems associated with breastfeeding.  Most of those
problems need someone to help them with them.  The mothers aren't there --
the grandmothers aren't there -- the aunts, cousins, sisters, friends aren't
there.  The formula companies ARE there.  The bottles ARE there.  The easy
way out IS there.  And when we opt for the easy way out in childbirth -- ie
-- take the epidural in the lobby -- we are more likely as a culture to take
the easy way out in breastfeeding.  After all, "I was formula fed, and I was
able to get a master's degree and even become president of ILCA and on the
exam board of IBLCE.  See, formula isn't so bad...."

Right.

If I'd been breastfed, maybe I'd be governor of Illinois by now, and Lord
knows they need a good one.

Jan Barger, RN, MA, IBCLC -- Wheaton IL
 -- who isn't even going to apologize for then length of this post!!Lactation
Education Consultants
www.lactationeducationconsultants.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