Although there is never one pat solution.  Perhaps the following will
address Barbara Leshin-Zucker's concern egarding breastfeeding duration.  I
believe support systems have a built in empowerment conponent although the
choice has already been made.

These are excerpts from an executive summary:
Title of Project:  Building a Peer Network of Nutrition and Breastfeeeding
Support for Rural Iowans

Project Director Director: Elisabeth Schafer, PhD. Professor of Nutrition,
Iowa State University

Purpose: The purposes of this project were to improve knowledge of
breastfeeding and healthy diet, to imporve dietary intake of mothers, and to
increase initiation rate and duration of breastfeeding.  The target audience
was WIC-eligible women in 2 locations in Iowa which were small-town and rural.

Breastfeeding duration:  Among the 31% of the control group who began
breastfeeding the mean duration was 2.5 weeks.  In contrast women in the
project group breastfed for an average of 5.7 weeks.  This longer duration
is important not only in comparison to the control group but also in
comparison to the previous experience of project participants who, if they
had attempted to breastfeed an earlier infant, had breastfed for an average
of only 3 week.

The table below shows the percentage of women breastfeeding at 2,4,8, and 12
weeks after the birth of the infant.
                                        control         project
2 weeks                                 18              81
4 weeks                                 10              56
8 weeks                                 10              48
12 weeks                                3               43

Joanne Burke Snyder MA, CLE, IBCLC
Latch-On Services, A Private Practice in Indianola, Iowa