i agree, barbara did a terrific job. international expert, you bet! she's on
an international list (lactnet), right?

one thing i would like to point out, although i have only been involved in
one of these ugly cases so far. we have to remember that the father, even
though he is making unreasonable demands, has little or no experience with
the infant in some cases. the case i was involved in had some interesting
elements, including the separation of the father and mother before the birth
of the baby. part of the story was that the father had no real idea of what
to expect.

for instance, he was given pumped breastmilk for use during a visit, and
didn't use it because he thought it had spoiled. it had separated. this is
not as strange as it might seem to some, most americans buy homogenized milk
that won't separate and don't even know that this is normal.

when i was visiting this mother for the first time, relations between the
parents were so bad that i had this brief vision of getting shot by the
father when he returned the baby, because the mother's description of what
was going on was so astounding. things were nearly that bad, but i made a big
effort to establish some communication with the father. this eventually
worked, as he called me a few times and was quite willing to be "educated"
(not that i gave that impression, i hope) about breastfeeeding and how to
relate to his daughter. his visitation were not going well because he had no
idea of what to expect.

i felt in this situation that i ought to look upon the baby as my client, and
do what i could with both parents to make the situation work. it was obvious,
for example, that this father was going to have at least a few hours of
visitation and would sometimes need to (and want to) feed the baby. the
mother had first responded to this situation by not pumping or providing
milk, because she seemed to think that this would prevent the father from
feeding the baby. not at all! he just fed the baby  ABM. it took some
persuading of both parents to make the situation into one i thought was
better for the baby.

carol brussel IBCLC
laura nevada lactation
denver colorado

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