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Subject:
From:
Chris Mulford <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Lactation Information and Discussion <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sun, 9 Oct 2005 10:33:33 -0400
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To Alicia Rudin 
Alicia, you asked where to find bf info in Korean. Why not try the ILCA
website www.ilca.org, where there is a listing, including email address, for
Yoo-Mi Chung, a Korean member of ILCA in Seoul. You could ask her advice.

Your multi-language, multi-culture League group sounds like a wonderful
chance both to serve and to learn from a diverse group of women. I think
that we Americans tend to idealize the breastfeeding experience of women in
other cultures, but in my experience, they face many of same challenges that
Americans do, even when they come from a very breastfeeding-supportive
culture. Your group of women is dealing with language and cultural barriers,
and probably doing it alone, without the normal support from other women
that they would have at home. Their husbands may or may not know much about
how to help them, and the culture shock is there for the men as well as the
women. These women need mother-to-mother support even more than the
native-born Americans. Possibly through your group they may be able to link
with other women from their country. At the very least, they can learn from
the experience of other foreign students who have already had their babies.

One thing that Dr. Lori Winter found, in a study she did in New Jersey and
New York hospitals, was that low English proficiency (LEP) was correlated
with lower success in breastfeeding. The hospitals that she surveyed were
hospitals with less than 50% bf initiation, and the moms with LEP seldom
received appropriate interpretation services. You can imagine how the
typical American nurse or doctor deals with a bf problem--or what they
perceive as a bf problem--when they can't communicate with the mother. That
bottle of formula is so handy!

In addition, formula marketing in other countries may be aimed especially at
the more educated class, from which I would guess many of the international
students are drawn. These moms may come from families where some members
have already formula fed their babies. They are future leaders in their home
countries, and the formula marketers would really like to capture them as
role models. And you, on the other hand, would like to see them breastfeed
successfully--partly for the same reason, let's admit it, but also for their
own and their baby's sakes.

I gues what I'm getting at here is to hope that you'll be able to prepare
these pregnant and breastfeeding moms to advocate for themselves to get
appropriate care from the American health care system, and that means doing
what you can to be sure they know how to get interpretation when they need
it. Many hospitals in NJ subscribe to a telephone interpretation service.
It's slow; it costs money; and there could be cultural problems--maybe the
interpreter on the phone is a man, for instance. But it can be very useful.

Good luck to all of you!
Chris 
Chris Mulford, RN, IBCLC
LLL Leader Reserve
working for WIC in South Jersey (Eastern USA)
Co-coordinator, Women & Work Task Force, WAB

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