Greetings from New Zealand
 I am not exactly new to Lactnet but I was using my husbands E-Mail address
so was rather eratic at receiving mail and I almost never sent any.
I am a nurse, midwife and Lactation Consultant working in Palmerston North.
I have 5 children, including twins, all of whom I breastfed.
 My exciting news is that I have just signed a 3 year contract with our
government funded Health Authority to run a community based pilot scheme as
Lactation Consultant in our city (population 70,000, less if university is
in session)
 My role is to provide training and education to the public, health
professionals and new parents on breastfeeding as well as to visit mothers
at home who are having difficulty with breastfeeding. It is a free service
and I am not attached to any hospital.
 Here in NZ we have approximately 93% of mums starting breastfeeding, They
all know that breastfeeding is best for their baby without any input from
us. The difficulty is in establishing comfortable breastfeeding so the Mums
want to continue
 I have a good rapport with the other independent midwives and child care
workers who happily refer mothers to me, but our local maternity hospital is
not finding it easy to accept my new independent position.
 I visit about 30 mums each month and average about 5 visits per day. I take
5 breastfeeding classes each month as well as classes for Health
Professionals.It is quite demanding as the job involves quite a bit of
travel,evening and weekend work.Fortunately Palmerston North is flat and not
a large city.
 Thank-you to all who answered my
Help message about Unusual Mastitis back in June. The mother concerned had
the red breast for one month then it spontaneously cleared up, well after
her courses of antibiotics were completed.She is still breastfeeding.
Robyn Dunning