>>Conclusions: In a hospital that strongly promotes breastfeeding, epidural labor analgesia with local anesthetics and opioids does not impede breastfeeding success. << OK, I’m not that well trained in reading and understanding these studies, so maybe I am missing something significant- if so please enlighten me... I know I could be missing something obvious. Couldn’t be simply the excellent lactation support services available in the hospital where the study was done, rather than anything pertaining to the use of epidurals, which accounted for this study’s finding of “no impeding of breastfeeding?” I don’t see how this gives any real assurances regarding epidural useage. Maybe the lactation consultants on staff had to spend a *significantly longer time* with each epidural mom in order to mitigate for the effects of the medication! Seems to me we could just as easily see the following statement: “In a hospital that strongly promotes breastfeeding, the use of water bottles, nipple shields, pacifiers or an SNS do not impede breastfeeding success.” Or am I missing something here? Thanks! Sue Jacoby, IBCLC Clovis, CA ______________________________________________ FREE Personalized Email at Mail.com Sign up at http://www.mail.com/?sr=signup *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html