I watched this show almost by chance. It was actually initially an interview
with Naomi Wolf, and a plug for her book "Misconceptions". Now I've read
this book and a lot of it has to do with what is considered 'normal'
childbirth practices in the USA, and interventions. She also talks at length
about her feelings and ambivalence after her child was born, and adjustment
period to motherhood, and lots of commentary about the difficulties of being
a mother in this day and age.

The interview seemed to focus more on postpartum issues, perhaps because
they were also plugging a documentary on postpartum issues that is playing
at some time on the Oxygen network. Apart from the fact that the message
seemed to be that it was "normal" to not bond with your baby (nb not COMMON,
but NORMAL) which I feel is misleading, her comments on breastfeeding were
hardly suprised given that she refers to LLL as the breastfeeding nazis in
the book.

What disappointed me the most, along with the "oh well it's all well and
wonderful if you can breastfeed but not everyone can' mentality, was the
woman who said "and no one told me it was normal for your nipples to hurt
for weeks, and to be bleeding"
At this point I was jumping up and down yelling at the TV "BUT IT"S NOT!"

My personal thoughts on the book where whilst much of it is accurate about
the excess of medical intervention in the childbirth process, I think she
had her own agenda (don't we all). She went on for chapters and chapters
about how her natural childbirth experience had been taken away from her,
but when it came to breastfeeding it was a case of "oh well it just didn't
work for me". I confess this is one of my pet peeves, that women can feel so
strongly (and rightly so) about maintaining an intervention free labour and
delivery but then consider breastfeeding to be a 'nice if you can do it'
luxury for the baby.

you can also order transcripts and tapes and get an overview of the show at
http://www.oprah.com/tows/pastshows/tows_2002/tows_past_20020917.jhtml
absolutely NO commercial interest in this for me!

Kirsten Blacker
Rn
Minnesota

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