"Does anyone work in a city/town with a relatively large Deaf population?
Being hearing impaired myself, I am interested in learning American Sign
Language (ASL) and would like to hear about experiences anyone has had
helping Deaf women.
Alis Fogarty
Pasadena, CA"

I lived and worked in Fremont, CA.  As I was told, it had the largest
*percentage* of deaf citizens in the U.S.  (Don't know if that is true.)
Since it is home to the California School for the Deaf, many deaf families
settle there, and have established a large deaf community.  It is very
common to see people signing everywhere one goes.

I did work with a few deaf clients.  Many of the dads and other support
people were also deaf.  The moms had the same breastfeeding problems other
moms did, but often received far less help in the hospital.  A few moms
told me they felt ignored and invisible; if they were able to have a
hearing translator with them, the staff spoke to the translators instead of
to the moms.

A complaint I heard a few times was the focus on "audible swallowing".  I
stressed watching the jaw excursion instead.  Another issue was having
almost every healthcare staff they came into contact with clapping hands
next to the baby and pronouncing the baby's hearing as fine (it doesn't
work that way.)  The issue of surgery is often a sensitive one, and not
usually a topic to bring up at a breastfeeding consult.

The major hurdle I had to overcome was using the special operator who would
go between my client's TTY and me speaking to them.  Breastfeeding terms
were usually new to the operators; it made for very lengthy phone
consults/follow-ups.

Good luck,
Marita Nickison, RN, IBCLC

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