Tony Knox wrote:
>
> Perhaps one could reasonably assume that counselling an asthmatic to quit
> smoking would be in the remit of sound advice whereas saying
>  > "you know if you had Bf this may not have happened." .
> would come under the heading of giving guilt induction which is pointless
> [since in the example the horse has long bolted].I would discipline anyone
> guilty of saying such a thing to a parent

It might indeed make the mother feel guilty and I really can't see anything at
all wrong with that.  Guilt is used against mothers for many things like smoking
during pregnancy, vaccinations, car seat safetly, child proofing homes etc, the
list is literally endless.  If the mother is told that failing to breastfeed may
have contributed to or caused her baby's problems the resulting guilt may be a
very good thing.  Would anyone not tell a mother whose child died as a result of
not using a car seat that her child might have survived the accident if she had
used one?  Wouldn't you feel an obligation to make sure that subsequent children
were put in car safety seats?  Protecting the mother from the guilt associated
with the negative consequences of her choices does nothing to help her next
child or even her grandchildren, nieces and nephews etc and seems to apply
*only* to feeding issues which strikes me as utterly ridiculous.   If the
failure to breastfeed came from bad advice, it make turn into anger and outrage
against the givers of such advice and I think that is also a good thing.  If
more people got angry about the bad advice they were given and spoke out about
it, HCP might make a better effort to be more careful.  That anger might also
serve to make the mother desire to do some more research for herself.
Withholding information because it might make a person feel guilty simply cannot
be right.   It's a paternalistic approach that I find undervalues women's
abilities to own their own feelings and use them in a mature way.

Gitte
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B Nielsen Carney @>-->-
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