Gina, what you are saying about a nursing education as preparation for working in OB?GYN is so true.  There is little taught about breastfeeding -- YET!!

The LVN and RN students who rotate through my department learn a lot about breastfeeding, if I am on duty.  But I am only there two days perweek that students are also there.  I have offered the three programs that bring us their students, to come in and talk about breastfeeding in one of their classes, FOR FREE.  But, as one teacher says, with all of OB-GYN to learn, BF is only covered for about 20 minutes.  And most of the class is not going on to be working in this field.  Maybe I should be offering it to the Pedi Nsg. curriculum?  Of course, pedi nursing doesn't rotate through the newborn areas, so that's out.

The fact is that just as our doctors are taught obsolete information, so were most of our nursing instructors.   They are aware, in our programs at least, that they are behind the times, but are trying to learn on the job, while teaching their students.  And of course, the hospital isn't going to offer an inservice to students and their instructors, when they can only pay the LCs for four hours/day.  Just not in the list of priorities.  

I encourage the nursing students, who come through and are interested in doing OB when they graduate, to get further information and look at classes and inservices being offered around the hospitals they're in.
I also do mini-inservices and latching and breastfeeding with as many students as I can round up at a time.  But I have patient care to do first.

The saving grace, of all of this, at least I hope, is that RN's new to a hospital, or to the field, do get 6 week orientations to the department, and we can do a lot of 1 - 1 breast feeding teaching at that time.

In the meantime, lets hope that as ob books are being re-edited, they will start to give current BF information.

Keep on challenging everybody.  If you don't bring it up, they can't say yes...

Sincerely,  Chanita, San Francisco