----- Original Message -----
From: "heather" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Tuesday, January 08, 2008 12:17 PM
Subject: Re: [LACTNET] Language: Insuffient milk/ Inadequate intake
> >Hi all
**Hi from me, too,
(snip)
> It's very common that mothers will 'low supply' are simply not feeding
> often enough, or at night, or they have been told never to offer more than
> one breast per 'session', or they limit feeds in some other way.
**I fully agree. What I was thinking about after Nikki's post, which was
very interesting, is how to prevent a situation where the cause of the
problem is put with the baby entirely.
When, like Heather says above, a mother doesn't feed often enough, I have
some trouble with the wordings: "Doesn't your baby take enough from the
breast?" No, of course not... he cannot create that situation all by
himself. He depends on his mother and therefore saying he's not doing the
important thing he is supposed to do (adequately removing milk from the
breast), doesn't seems fair, either, when it comes to watching our language.
This goes for many other situations. I think it is important not to put a
certain responsibility on the baby's shoulders when in fact, it belongs with
his mother/parents.
Sometimes women do indeed have inadequate supply; that is something else
than saying they are inadequate as a person. Gandhi once said: "Don't
disapprove of a person; if necessary, disapprove of his behavior." I value
this difference. I agree heartily on the issue of carefully formulating what
we want to bring across, but there are serious drawbacks on putting the
'blame' on the baby. Even if the baby *does* have a problem, it is still the
responsibility of the parents to seek help for the problem. And what is most
important in raising children, is to take responsibility as a parent and
first find out what your own share of the problem is, not because you are a
complete failure, but because you are human and don't have to be perfect.
But you can learn and improve, understanding as well as behavior, and with
growing understanding, you may find out that your body *is* perfect and that
it was simply your knowledge that wasn't up to the circumstances. And when
it comes to increasing knowledge... that is where we as lc's come in quite
handy! ;o))
Warmly,
Marianne Vanderveen, Netherlands (and calming down here over a nasty issue
in another setting, where I as the messenger of a Code-violation was blamed
for endangering the BFHI-certificate of the organisation concerned, instead
of blaming themselves for training their personnel through a
formula-sponsored educational meeting... :-s)
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