Dear Lactnet

Terry says diet sheets given to bf mothers may make some  feel they can't
breastfeed because they don't eat well - yes, and I saw in a babycare book
yesterday (picked up in a shop, can't remember the title, something like
'Feeding in the first two years' ) among reasonably +ve things about bf
that it is 'essential' to bf that the mother eat well and in good enough
quantities, raising the spectre of middle class US mothers failing to
nourish their children well on breast milk because of their own poor diets
- a scare which surfaced here, too. It's just another way to make bf seem
like something that's physically difficult to do, and hedging it round and
round with so many dos and don'ts...sigh. There are some good refs in
IBFAN's book Crucial aspects of Infant Feeding in Emergency and Relief
Situations on diet and bf, also WHOs Bulletin, Infant Feeding,
Physiological Basis.

And as a postscript on another topic, the awful instruction to put your new
baby in his cot while he's still awake to encourage good sleeping habits ,
how about this for a sad call - a health visitor (one I didn't know) called
me to ask among other things what she can do to help a mother with an
eight-week old baby who is showing signs of becoming  'dependent on the
breast' - eh???? What a way to put it - you'd think we were talking heroin
or crack cocaine....

all the best to all

Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc UK