I was pleased to see what Leigh wrote about noticing more women 
breastfeeding beyond a year. I would have to say that from my hospital 
based perspective (and then what I see in places like malls,etc., or 
maybge it is my part of Connecticut here), I would say that it is my gut 
feeling that more and more women are nursing (no matter how long). It is a 
sad fact but women are working outside the home and they have to do what 
they have to do. I'm just glad to see that more are considering that 
breastmilk is the optimal baby food. Personally, even though I think it is 
a lot of extra work, if women want to pump and bottle feed breastmilk, go 
for it.......I feel that my job is to educate, help get them off to a 
flying start and then step back and support whatever feeding choices they 
make. I can't believe how many questions I answer from moms who call weeks 
and months later. 

Something that has always amazed me here on this board (and on another on 
which I post) that all of us seem to experience the same trends (positive 
or negative) wherever we are. I often find myself telling people at work 
about the similarities nurses and lactation consultants find no matter 
where they are based.

I love it when visitors at my facility come to see someone who has just 
delivered and they seek me out to show me their baby and then they say to 
the child, "this is the lady who helped you learn to nurse," and they 
usually go on and tell me what a wonderful experience it was for them. I 
know I have done my job when they do this.

The flip side of this coin is that sometimes when I follow up, they tell 
me they have stopped and for what reason(s). It is not up to me to try and 
change that but to listen and learn from what they say. It is not my place 
to try and tell them what they should have done because that might be my 
agenda and clearly not theirs. It is also not my job to criticize the 
people who may or may not have helped them (I work with many mothers who 
have delivered at other facilities).

Just getting women to start breastfeeding in the first place is the first 
step in the right direction. 

I know it's possible because I breastfed my second (while working full 
time outside the home) for two years. My first only nursed a little over a 
year and I was a stay-at-home mom that time. So you just never know.....

Personally, I feel it is very exciting to see more people jumping on the 
breastfeeding "bandwagon." Maybe the AAP will do a good job re-educating 
their doctors. I certainly have a couple at work who need that!

Like us nurss who only see the homebirths "gone bad" in the hospital, much 
of the time some non-hospital based LC's may only see the breastfeeding 
problems and situations "gone bad." Like the sucessful homebirths that we 
never see, there are lots and lots of women out there we never see because 
their breastfeeding goes well. We don't see them because they don't need 
us, just like the homebirth mom who didn't need any hospital interventions.

I would like to see this board concentrate on what we do right more often 
as opposed to all those "train wreck" breastfeeders that we seem to 
concentrate on most of the time. It's not that I want to downplay the 
issues some of us address but it would be nice to keep passing those good 
helpful hints back and forth because those are what help us make it go 
right for some who have experienced problems.

I learned a long time ago that you can't help everyone and everyone isn't 
going to have the positive experiences I had and there will be some who 
say "oh gross" or whatever. There is absolutely nothing we can do to 
change those mindsets and why bother? There are more than enough willing 
interested people out there who want to learn (hopefully some docs are in 
that group).  

Betsy Riedel RNC, IBCLC
Connecticut

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