Dear Becky and everyone else

I'm really sorry I seem to have posted such a controversial post. My
original started out 'please help because I have not much experience...this
Mom has had sore nipples for two weeks....am I missing something...' so I
certainly did not intend to be arrogant.

The only credentials I have are being a breastfeeding counselor with the
Nursing Mother's Council (and having 3 breastfed babies myself). I don't
think this means I can do suck training but I DO think this enables me, at
least most of the time, to spot positioning problems.  I was asked to visit
this Mom by another much more experienced counselor who does not have time
to see people at home, and I 'reported back' to her after each contact.

I advised Mom against pumping throughout the 1st 2 phone calls because she
called me and said "I have sore nipples and can I rent a pump from you" and
it seemed to me that a pump was not necessarily the first option. I could
rent millions of pumps to people who don't need them if I wanted to. Nearly
everybody who needs anything fixed asks me for a pump and I often try to
stave them off a little. Yesterday on Lactnet I was severely chastised by
someone with lots of experience for letting this mom pump at all!!! And
several emails to me are saying this Mom should not be pumping, and that a
pump would hurt the nipples.....(which, from personal experience, is not
always the case).
I did rent her a pump when I went to see her because she really wanted one!
(and I defended that yesterday on Lactnet)

The nystatin was for Mom's nipples. Mom said "The pediatrician told me I
don't have thrush, the baby doesn't have thrush, but I should dab this on a
couple of times a day as a preventative treatment because my nipples are
cracked. I have been using it for a week, it doesn't seem to be doing
much." I didn't tell her to trash it - only I asked her if she would
consider stopping for one day in case she was reacting to the nystatin -
was this really so out of line? Probably it was, as it was against dr's
orders. Maybe due to my lack of experience I have not heard about nystatin
being prescribed as a preventative for thrush when mom has a cracked
nipple. Is this common? Is it correct?

"And does anybody REALLY use tincture of benzoin on sore nipples??!!" This
was not my suggestion, as I guess you understood, it was the suggestion of
whoever answered my post last time.

SO thanks again for all the wildly conflicting input!

Anne Merewood
Who is ONLY a breastfeeding counselor and has NO OTHER QUALIFICATIONS (but
is a  journalist by training and writes cocky columns for newspapers and
forgets to adapt style when on Lactnet.)

PS This Mom does call me every 2 days and keeps saying "I wish I had found
you the day after I gave birth instead of a week later," so I guess it's
not all bad....