Lactation activist and attorney.  A good combination.  Here is a quick
review of some of the issues an attorney can get into and help breastfeeding
mothers.

1. The issue of equating "long term breastfeeding" with child abuse or
having sex with children.  This comes up frequently enough for it to be a
worry.  This has been a hot topic recently.

2. Breastfeeding and paternal access in cases of separation and divorce.
Frequently fathers (or their lawyers) use the fact that the mother is
breastfeeding as a weapon against her. (She breastfeeds in order to control
the child; she breastfeeds to deny access to the father; she breastfeeds for
sexual pleasure; she breastfeeds too long; she is a lousy mother because she
breastfeeds a 14 month old which is too old and likely to turn the child
into a "sissy" or make him overdependent).

3. Breastfeeding mothers forced to do jury duty.

4. Breastfeeding women are harassed if they breastfeed in public.

5. Work place issues (The US has about the lousiest maternity leave in the
world).

Any of these topics could use a book, but public policy would probably be
more useful.

Your physician is too typical of too many doctors.  They believe in formula
and don't believe in breastfeeding.  They look at numbers so carefully they
can't see what's important.  Height is notoriously difficult to measure in
small children, but the doctor believes the numbers (probably doesn't know
how difficult it is to measure the child's height, probably somebody else
does it).  Any child growing up in Los Angeles, despite the smog, does not
need vitamin D if their mothers are not deficient, and if they get outside
at all.

If you go to the websites below, you will find a few pages of breastfeeding
myths, as well as a couple of pages on How to Know a Health Professional is
not Supportive of Breastfeeding.  When I give this one out to the mothers in
the clinic, I tell them you have to know, because all health professionals
*say* they are supportive.  But if they are not they will give you bad
advice.

http://www.erols.com/cindyrn/drjack0.htm

or

http://www.firstfeast.com/articles/articles.html

Jack Newman, MD, FRCPC

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