Susan said,

<< Where is the community outreach in these statistics?  If we are to
ever succeed  as 20 being more than just a profession that assists
mothers in the first 3-4 days of their infant's life, predominantly in a
hospital setting, this huge imbalance needs to be rectified.  We need
OTHER professions to enrich how we practice --- we NEED more IBCLCs
outside the hospital --- we NEED more than a medical model because  so
much of breastfeeding is about interacting with the mother infant dyad
and assisting them to develop a healthy relationship to feeding.>>

Hi everyone, 
I have been nomail for a long time during which I made a career change
of sorts.  I now work at our state department of health in the programs
area, which includes breastfeeding, (where I am thrilled to be!) and am
pursuing a Master's in Public Health.  I wanted to comment on Susan's
post.  From the perspective of someone who's been doing this for more
than 25 years, and has gone from being a La Leche League Leader, to an
RN (back when it was the main avenue I could see for working with more
women trying to breastfeed), to my current status overseeing programs, I
hear comments from people about how far we have to go, that we have to
stop pushing the health advantages of breastfeeding because it's not
working anymore, and Susan's post citing the inequity of having so many
IBCLCs who are RNs, and I would encourage you to take a step back and
see where we've come from.  I know Susan's been doing this for a while
as well and speaks from a non-RN standpoint.  I think that all these
issues are a reflection of 'step one' in getting breastfeeding on-track
in the U.S. (which is where the stats come from, I assume?)  Pushing the
health advantages HAS worked, to this point at least.  It made people,
professionals and parents, pay attention to the issue.  Likewise, we
needed staff in hospitals to help women get started because there were
so many women being sabotaged in their efforts to breastfeed in the
early days after birth.  It's not a question of why we have those stats.
To me, it's a question of where we go from here.  I did private practice
LC for a few years and saw the great need for that in the community.
That's a next step, in my book, as are walk-in clinics and better
educated medical personnel.  We need better laws as well.  Indiana has
recently passed breastfeeding in the workplace legislation, we are happy
to say!  All these are steps along the way, but we are making progress.
We have a long way to go, yes, but we are so much closer than we were 20
years ago!  Just keep trudging.  We'll get up that hill one of these
days!

Marsha Glass RN, IBCLC
"Mimi" to Christian, Cambria, Ravi, Kirra and soon-to-come Lucas!

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