> From:    Magda Sachs <[log in to unmask] wrote:
>
> Maurenne, you asked for the top three interventions that interfere with bf in
a
> hospital setting.
>
> I know that this is not what you wanted, but feel moved to say that in my
> experience the hospital setting itself is one of the practices which can have
> the greatest negative impact on breastfeeding.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My response is  the same as Magda's. The fact that the hospital is a place
where sick people go and treatment is done to them IS a big impediment to
creating an ambiance for the support of a normal physiologic process. So
number
one intervention is birth place, in my opinion.

Number two is the underlying beliefs in the education of medical workers,
namely that their job is to *do* something, which is appropriate for helping
the sick. With birth, if workers had training in supporting the normal,
rather than repairing the broken, the process might flow more easily and
with less harm. If birth and breastfeeding can be
reframed as normal physiologic processess, then all will shift to support
normal birth and breastfeeding rather than sabotage it.

Number three, lack of belief in the power of the human body, namely the
reality that WOMAN ARE MADE TO GIVE BIRTH (yes, I am speaking loudly) and
babies are designed to thrive with the normal pysiologic process of birth
and breastfeeding. Again, take birthing women out of the hospital and these
three impediments are removed.

In homebirth practice I do not see the problems that affect healthy mothers
and babies that I read about on Lactnet. I wish every woman and man and
Lactnetter could see normal birth and remember that we all share a legacy of
women who know how to give birth. That is how we got here, unless our own
mothers had cesarian sections.

And yes, there is a place for medicine for those who are ill and need
treatment. I honor the hospital, the machines and the skilled workers who
provide care for the ill mothers and babies. Thank heavens for those
interventions and people that save lives.

My concern is that the majority of women who are healthy and capable of
birthing and breastfeeding with little help are being turned into risky
cases that require unnecessary management that is impedes the flow of the
normal process.

Oh my, I am ranting.  Forgive me friends.

Lisa Boisvert Mackenzie
Saipan, Northern Mariana Islands

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