lee  writes:

In most average  cases, breastfeeding is simple and easy.  Why are there so 
many  problems?  Our birthing and breastfeeding practices create the train  
wrecks; they are not normal.  We need to remember that because what we as  
LCs see are mostly the train wrecks.  The serious medical situations are  a 
different story; but they are rare.  Not rare, however, are the hard,  
engorged breasts caused by the lack of frequent breastfeeding in the first 1-3  
days by an undrugged baby who has been with its mom since birth.  It's so  
simple but our hospitals and women don't do it.

 
~~~ 
Ah that resonates  so much with my experience, both as a new mom almost 25 
years ago, and with the  moms I see now.  I had flat nipples,  my son was 
taken away since  there was no rooming in, and he was given bottles behind my 
back in the hospital  for 36 hours before I got home. He screamed or shut 
down every time I  brought him near my breast. Those breast shells just helped 
normalize things by  giving me a little help, or him, or us both however 
you want to look at it. I  think the fact that I had no medications and he was 
suffering "only" from  being separated from me for those first two nights, 
which we remedied as  soon as I got home, but  was not also  drugged or 
irritated by labor/delivery meds for days, helped  us get back on track faster.  
I didn't need them after a week or  so.  If it  hadn't been for LLL's phone 
help at that 36 hour mark, and someone at a meeting  telling me about how 
the shields helped them early on, I would have followed my  
then-pediatrician's advice, and there would have been no hope of him ever  breastfeeding. 
 
Peace,
 
Judy 

Judy LeVan  Fram, PT, IBCLC, LLLL
Brooklyn, NY, USA
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