Ilene's question is a good one and I'll bet most all of us have wrestled
with it from time to time.  Here's where I've come from.

I too sought to make sure no one was offended at my LLL meetings when I led
them.

However, over the years, partiuclarly since I started charging for the
advice and assistance I provide, I have come to accept that whatever I say
or do will meet with disapproval from SOMEONE. That is not to say that what
I say or do is wrong or might have been done better, but just that we are
all different with varying values and beliefs, and degrees of comfort.

Therefore, I have stopped trying to water down the importance of
breastfeeding which is, after all, THE key of optimal infant health. I
stand on the backs/shoulders/heads of many prominent individuals when I
support breastfeeding. Rather than noting how much better breastmilk and
breastfeeding is from the substitutes, I have even come so far as to state
clearly and to provide written material, as well, that focuses attention on
the risks/liabilities/illnesses/deficiencies and the like that are
attendent with artificial feeding of non human milk.  The comments of
clients is usually a) surprise, b) pleasure that they didn't know but now
do and had already decided for themselves that breastfeeding was for them.
The only people who are most uncomfortable with such information is health
care workers whose own training did not include this information and whose
approach is considerably more circumspect than my own.  That is ok.  They
are not yet where I am now. Perhpas they will be some day.  Perhaps never.
That is ok.  What is not ok is their having the slightest doubt about where
I stand.  If they are going to refer clients to me, they need to know that
I am not going to hide or minimize those significnat and important health
care differences. They need to know that I am going to do all I can to help
a mother breastfeed, for as long as she wishes that assistance. To do
otherwise is not to provide their patients with the best I can offer them.

If they want someone less forthright, that, too, is ok.  (My hope is that
all other LCs will be as upfront as I in getting that message across.  Then
perhaps in thef uture, we will not be viewed as fanatics but rather as
forerunners of a message completely accepted throughout society by all--and
acted upon, too.

Wow--what a soapbox.  Am climbing down.  Next?  :-)




Def. of LC service: "We are all faced with a series of great opportunities
brilliantly disguised as impossible situations."
Kathleen G. Auerbach,PhD, IBCLC - [log in to unmask]