In considering this question, it seems to me we cannot really leave
the mom/baby alone.  Unless she comes from a totally breastfeeding
friendly environment, in the room "with" her are all the slick
formula ads, "press releases" and the "bottlefeeding is OK too"
articles she's been exposed to.  There are pictures of lousy latches
that unfortunately are in some literature she may have read.  While
the nurses may not be in the room with her at the moment, anything
they have said, such as, "Baby must eat now." is certainly in the
room with her.

In my prenatal classes I always mention that each new mom is
different.  Some prefer to be left alone (along with whatever
support person(s) whe wishes) for the first feding while others
prefer to have someone there "coaching"  her with the first feed.  I
encourage them to let their nurse know which approach they prefer.
I am usually not seeing the mom until she has already had several
opportunities to nurse baby.  I start out with some open-ended
questions like, "How is the nursing going?" and "How is it
feeling?".  If I don't get an enthusiastic "Great!", I explore
further.  If I hear clues that baby may not be latching effectively,
I talk about elements of an effective latch.  I like to describe the
process while baby is quiet.  When baby does look interested, I try
to gently talk mom through latching and keep hands off unless she
isn't "getting" what I'm trying to describe.  Some people are more
tactile than verbal learners, and for them it usually helps for me
to take her through the latch.  I find it frustrating when I go in a
room and baby is frantically trying to latch and mom seems ready to
give up.  In those cases  I sometimes have to "act now, explain
later".  Through all this, I frequently remind mom that right now
while she and baby are learning, it may seem like a lot of little
details ro think about.  However, once she and baby become "pros",
she will be able to simply put baby in the vacinity of the breast
and baby will take over from there.  (Well, maybe not quite that
simply in some cases, but the point is to be sure mom doesn't get
bogged down with the details.)  While the analogy of learning to
dance is good because it involves both partners learning, in making
this point, I usually refer to learning to drive.  While first
learning may have been a little frustrating, I think every driver
has had the experience of suddenly realizing that they don't really
remember driving from point A to point B.  It isn't always because
the driver is experiencing "micro sleeps", but because the process
has become so automatic that you don't have to think about it unless
something unusual comes up.

So, again, helping a mom learn to breastfeed isn't  a "one size fits
all" process.  The trick is being able to pick up on whether a
particular mom needs the "leave me alone" approach or the "be there
and coach" approach.

Winnie

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