Jan B asks:
"But if the baby is as yellow as a pumpkin, do I say he's yellow, or he is jaundiced, or he has hyperbilirubinemia?  Which is diagnosing?"

In this example, none are diagnosing, all are merely describing the same symptom in different words.  Hyperbilirubinemia assumes you know his blood level as well as his skin color, but doesn't come any closer to a diagnosis of the underlying condition causing this SYMPTOM.
We must be able to describe symptoms, surely?
Don't know if I like the idea of lactational diagnoses.  Diagnoses are for illnesses, and lactation issues so rarely involve pathology.  I feel fine identifying BF problems, and proposing solutions, but less fine making diagnoses and prescribing treatments.  Not just the legal aspects I have trouble with, it is the incorporation of breastfeeding into that domain for which we seek medical help.  Lactation is as normal as respiration or circulation or urination, things my body does all by itself as the need arises, and not because of a prescription I have been given or an operation I have had.  Making use of my lactational capacity is a learned skill, again not the result of medical or nursing treatment or drugs.
That is my deciliter for the day.
Rachel Myr
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Kristiansand, Norway  Daffodils on verge of blooming, YES!

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