> at the time it was developed - to place the dilemmas for IBCLCs in policy, 
> practice, politics and research-based evidence (or lack of it) under 
> closer scrutiny?  Let's all talk about this some more!
>


--------Thank you Pamela for your long and thoughtfull posting. I would like 
to add something to the discussion, as being an old-fashioned 
LaLecheLeague-leader :-)
I apologize on forehand, English is my third language and somehow the 
WHO-code always gets me started. It makes my thoughts tumbling aroudn in my 
head and somehow I can't get them out of my keyboard :-)

I use to say to mothers: all you need to breastfeed is a baby and a breast. 
Well...........I am corrected very often nowadays. If you breastfeed, you 
nééd a pump. In fact, it is the first thing mothers want to talk about when 
they are still pregnant of their first baby. Ofcourse it's good to be 
prepared, but gee, delíver the baby first, start breastfeeding and then, 
when things are enrolling on your new mother-path, start thinking about a 
pump.

What irritates me in that is double: A. women/mothers to be don't believe in 
their own capacity to breastfeed or express milk by hand and B. buying a 
pump needs a sort of technical knowledge which is, in my eyes, ridiculous.
Ofcourse, mothers need good pumps. But nowadays "the pumping industry" seems 
to have become a man's world, where nice, trustworthy looking, technical 
gifted sort of docters help mothers to make the Right Choice in buying a 
pump. Every manufacturer has different types and to see through them all and 
understand exactly how they work and why and when and for whom, needs a sort 
of technical insight I don't have :-)

Breastfeeding or better, pumping, is pimped. Pimp my pump. Spend up to 2-300 
dollar to get A Right One. Buy a new one for every new baby (yes! I work 
with mothers who do that, they say Medela says they must..........). Get 
dependent on electricity. On technical developments. Get feeling more and 
more stupid, because you don't *really*  understand the suction-rymths in 
Harmony, Symphony, Melody, Tragedy or whatever.

Sigh. I want mothers and babies to breastfeed. And nót to fall in hands of 
an industry, whatever industry that might be. It used to be ABM, now it's 
pumps. What's next: gel-pads? Bra's?

I hope you don't mind me rambling away. As I said, thoughts tumble through 
my mind. Is there any of you linking in to my words and thoughts?

Lydia, LLL, Netherlands
Don't try, do. Or do not. There is no try. ~ Yoda

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