In my role as an LC, I find that there are some mothers who contact me 
periodically throughout the first year or more of mothering and that my 
role is much more that if a mentor than anything else. This is actually 
the role I most prefer, perhaps because it is so much like my role as 
an LLLL or Peer Counselor Coordinator, where I had the privilege and 
joy of watching women grow into their mothering, becoming confident and 
secure mothers. I think that the support many of us received in our own 
mothering is much more akin to having been "mentored", than having been 
"educated", whether that mentor was a family member or friend, a 
stranger in the mall, a LLLL or a loving pediatrician (mine brought her 
own nursling to her office with her).

  In my years as a Peer Counselor Coordinator, my program enrolled 1000 
women who received services at the clinic and we saw an additional 1000 
women who had private insurance, only while in hospital. When we began 
our program, the avg breastfeeding duration rate at the clinic was 2 
weeks, but within a year it was 4 months. (Remember, in my community, 
this was the population least likely to bf and included 250 teen moms).

  This program was CHEAP, but all of the Peer Counselors were paid (not 
a lot, but above minimum wage and they brought their own 
babies/toddlers to work).We provided subsidized nursing bras and slings 
($5 each) and paid for their breastpumps for work or school and paid 
for all equipment they needed (such as SNS, syringes, Habermans, etc) 
The greatest advantage to this system is that the training of PC's is 
also cheap, so if women did not work or did not work for long, I had 
the pleasure of knowing I had just placed a skilled mentor into her own 
community.

  Unfortunately, for all the reasons the program was successful, it was 
also undermined by a majority of HCP's. It was very threatening to so 
many of them (not all) to see poor women inspiring other poor women to 
make informed, empowered decisions about their own health care. This 
meant that women made choices like refusing the (not really mandatory 
b/c it's illegal to make it mandatory, but we will coerce you into it 
anyway) Depo shot, or epidurals or allowing their babies in NICU to 
have AIM or any number of other things poor women don't usually do. It 
was also threatening to many HCPs to have "uneducated" women doing such 
a job--they were perceived as "unprofessional" and their every move was 
often scrutinized and even sometimes were verbally abused by some 
hospital or clinic staff members. So, you need enormous buy-in from 
management and we did not have that at all.

  But, if you really want to suffuse a community with both the skill and 
support to breastfeed, then find a way to put hundreds, even thousands 
of Peer Counselors into your neighborhoods. Just do it well--train them 
well, realizing that they may be the gate-keepers and women may see 
only them and never an LC. Set up a system to provide this care from 
pregnancy (or before) throughout the duration of breastfeeding. IBCLCs 
only need to do the training, track the outcomes and see the mothers 
who have more challenging difficulties. My biggest role was support to 
my staff. It's a much cheaper idea than one LC per mom, that's for sure.

  If you can get the HCPs to back off, you can create a lovely mutiny 
wherein women take breastfeeding back into their homes and their hearts 
and out of the hands of the medical interventionists (and the 
pharmaceutical companies). But beware, you may find that women take 
birth back into their homes and their hearts as well.

 Jennifer Tow, IBCLC, CT, USA
 Intuitive Parenting Network LLC

________________________________________________________________________
Check out the new AOL.  Most comprehensive set of free safety and 
security tools, free access to millions of high-quality videos from 
across the web, free AOL Mail and more.

             ***********************************************

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]

The LACTNET email list is powered by LISTSERV (R).
There is only one LISTSERV. To learn more, visit:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html