Jennifer wrote, " My supervising physician and I want to teach the residents
about how to handle some common (and uncommon) breastfeeding situations.  We
wanted to take everyone up to the floor of the hospital to observe some
mothers nursing but that would be difficult with a largenumber of residents.
Any suggestions?"

During the BFHI 18-hour Workshops we teach the theory and then on the last
day we do the clinical sessions.  We have anywhere from 18 - 30
participants.  We assign each of them a mother, a History form and a
Breastfeed Observation form, and give them as much time as they need to
spend with the mom to fill out the forms, observe and assist with the
breastfeeding. Later we have each of them make a mini-presentation to all
the others about what they found.  This takes a long time, but the results
are amazing.  *Before* the clinicals you can look around and see many of the
participants thinking yeah, yeah! so what's the big deal about
breastfeeding?  After spending time with a mom they come back with eyes like
saucers, hardly able to contain themselves for the wonder of it all, and
scandalized about what they now see to be impediments to successful
breastfeeding,  "She gave her last baby PORRIDGE (gasp) at THREE MONTHS
(deep breath ..)!!" etc etc. All the mothers have different experiences, so
all the participants report on different things, and because they are all
(by now) so enthusiastic they all hang onto each other's every word!

Hope this helps as an idea.

Oh yes, and one of the totally unexpected side-effects I have observed is
that the *mothers themselves* really benefit from having the undivided
attention and total interest of someone for 30 - 45 minutes - someone who
wants to know all about this baby, and the breastfeeding, and the previous
babies, and by the nature of the questions asked, appears to *care* (the
participants all madly practising asking open-ended questions, reflecting
feelings, minding their body language, e g we insist that they sit at the
bedside, not stand - the whole caboodle).  I have seen mothers seem totally
dejected when we walk in, and relaxed and smiling when we leave.  Of course,
this is what the BFHI is all about - but it's still wonderful to *see*.

Pamela Morrison IBCLC, Zimbabwe