Nikki asked:  "This basic, life-supporting impulse collides into the 
relatively  recent need
for reimbursement. How can these 2 different roads be  reconciled?" 


As someone outside the USA it seems very obvious that the conflict is a 
product of the political and economic system within which you operate.  All 
the 'need to be paid' and therefore the dependence on commercial interests 
is because the state does not pay for breastfeeding help. 

Here in the UK we have a (slowly disintegrating) system of socialised 
medicine-- 60 years old this week and one of the finest acheivements of the 
20th century in the UK (although the continent can knock spots off the 
system in many ways these days).  We have volunteers, and at least the group 
I work for, is able to have a complete ban on working for commercial 
interests, and a policy of carefully considering whether to speak at 
sponosored events. 

The people who are LCs here in the UK are mostly also health professionals, 
employed by the National Health Service, whose skills with breastfeeding may 
arise out of personal passion and be partly self-funded (study events, etc) 
but who are basically able to be free of commercial influence.  And long may 
this last for us!!!!!! 

As I am American and only left in my 20's the situation you all describe 
still sounds vaguely understandable, but -- from the outside -- it is 
completely bizarre.  As long as you live in this situation, you will find 
yourselves contortioning to square your circle. 

I feel sympathy for you all at the individual level.  However, aside from 
the impatience at my fellow Americans collectively for their strange 
customs, I do feel very angry at the way this way of thinking and 
exploitation is exported worldwide, poisoning things for the rest of us. 

I know many will bridle at this statement, but I make it to let you know how 
really unsavoury this whole discussion has appeared from afar. 

Magda Sachs
Breastfeeding Supporter, The Breastfeeding Network, UK

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