Just my lay 2 cents.  Well before I went to the hospital to have my first
baby I made a very detailed but easy to read birth plan.  It was laid out in
a grid:  on one side it had all of the stages of birth (including emergency
c-section if necessary) and the first days (decending the page) and across
the top it had mother, baby, father, breastfeeding.  It was a chart so that
you could easily see that in the first minutes after birth I wanted to put
the baby to the breast before any weighing, etc. took place or that I didn't
want to be asked for an epidural, if I wanted one I would ask for one, and
so on.  This birth plan was signed by me, my husband and the doctor.  It was
in our chart, posted on our door, on display in the room, etc.  I think we
actually intimidated some of the nurses because of this.  THis idea wasn't
original to us as we got it from the Bradley Childbirth Classes, but I think
we did fine tune it nicely.  My only regret is that we didn't have a LC
visit on it--we actually had problems BF the first night which were not
helped by the staff nurse, but once the grandmotherly CNA came to "check to
see if we needed any more water" and helped with latch, the problems cleared
up.

HYPOTHETICALLY:  What if detailed breastfeeding plans were available to the
BF friendly mothers, signed by the doctors, and posted the same way?  The
LCs, LLLs, MDs, DOs, etc. could have these available to the mothers, the
docs could be executed and no one would have any questions.  I don't ever
remember anyone asking me if I was "breastfeeding or bottlefeeding," and I
was not in labor when I was admitted to the hospital (I was induced).  I
attribute it now to the quality of the birth plan.

As a side note, baby #2 was born in a stand alone birth center attended by a
midwife, breastfeeding was a given, and I have beautiful memories of the
first hours lying in a queen sized bed nursing before we went home.

Shannon Lee Denney
Attorney, returning student, mom of 2
(on a side note, outraged by the article in the Sunday Milwaukee Journal
Sentinal Living section article on BF and contemplating my response--isn't
there someone else from Milw here, too?)

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