This must be my week for encouraging stories.  Here's another.  Client has a
sixteen day old baby girl who hadn't quite regained her birthweight by 10
days. The nurse at the paediatrician's office suggested that she breastfeed
first and then top up with EBM, and wanted to re-weigh the baby in a week.
Mom started panicking when she didn't have enough EBM to supplement with so
she decided to top up with formula and (unknown to me!) phoned the paed's
office to find out which formula would be "best".  Both the paed and the
nurse were out so she spoke to the male clerk/telephonist/receptionist and
told him all about her problem.  Without missing a breath he warned her
strongly *not* to give the baby formula but explained carefully and
graphically that during breastfeeding she should "suppress" the breast and
watch for swallowing so that the baby would drink more milk and thus not
*need* the formula.

I phoned the clerk today to thank him for his good advice and enquired
whether he was actually a nurse/midwife as well? (we have a lot of male
midwives here). No, he wasn't, he was just the clerk.  Well where did he
learn about such good breastfeeding information?  Well, he said, just
because he knows about babies!
Priceless, isn't it?

Pamela Morrison IBCLC, Zimbabwe (wondering if Jack has been sneaking his
handouts to this guy ..)