>(1) WHY did the
woman go in the back room?  She says the receptionist "made me go in the
back room" -- What?  The receptionist held a gun to the mother's head?  The
receptionist had a knife...<snip>...Why didn't the mother raise bloody hell
with the doctor (either way)?<

Interesting idea to come down so hard on this woman.  I am regarded by many
who know me as fairly assertive but I was once in hospital casualty and told
by a nurse not to breastfeed in the waiting room.  I complied with her
request to go into a cubicle to breastfeed (I was there with my daughter as
the patient, btw).  Yeah, afterwards I wrote and complained -- to the
hospital, to the newspaper, to my MP (Member of Parliament), and actually
got the hospital to institute a policy.  But at the time, when I thought my
daughter's symptoms might mean she had meningitis, or something equally
horrid, I felt both overwhelmed with fear at the situation and beholden to
the doctors and the whole hospital system.  If I had complained, my
emotional state told me, my child's health might be at risk.

Of course, we don't know the medical reason for this mother's visit to the
doctor, but we might be
tempted to cut her a bit of slack.

>Why is the *husband* going to *call* the *hospital* and complain?  I
realize
the mom was upset at the time, but that is still no excuse for pawning the
job off on her husband.  The woman *should have* taken care of the issue
then and there, but since she didn't, SHE should now *write a letter* to the
*doctor* complaining about the receptionist's attitude and actions.<

One of the issues often covered by those of us who support breastfeeding
women is what fathers can do to support their partners and babies in
breastfeeding.  Maybe this is a dad, offering to do what he feels he can to
help protect the breastfeeding dyad -- seems to me that it is up to the
people involved to decide how they divide up the work of their household.
For all we know she is 'pawning' this job off on him in return for his
'pawning' off on her the lion's share of the baby care, as he (in the
traditional way which some families still follow in our western societies)
goes out to work.

Is it going to be useful to this mother to learn that, in addition to having
an ignorant receptionist treating her dismally, she is being slagged off for
not feeling up to top-notch self-defense behaviour on the spur of the
moment????  As a mother-support worker, my job would be to meet the mother
where she *is* and address her needs.  Holding her up to ideal standards of
behaviour and castigating her for falling short is a job well left to the
likes of Ann Landers.

Here on LactNet there has been discussion about not being disrespectful to
(while feeling free to disagree with) others in a variety of professions.  I
hope we are not accepting that it is ok for our public record (the archives)
to show that, while we insist onprofessional courtesy,  we are so frankly
dismissive of a breastfeeding mother and so judgemental about her ways of
dealing with what was probably a difficult situation for her.  *We* might
(each personally) have done it differently.  We might applaud women who can
stand up at the time and defend their rights....but do we want it on record
that, as a group of people working with breastfeeding, we feel comfortable
with such brutal judgements about women  who are *in* this situation???
(Count me out).

Magda Sachs
Breastfeeding Supporter, BfN, UK

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