In einer eMail vom 8-7-01 5:14:13 West-Europa (zomertijd) schreibt [log in to unmask]: > Is anyone else as depressed over the way birth is going as I am? I know > Rachel :-) we need to go off list. But it all so significantly affects BF. > Pat, your right, but unmedicated and homebirthing is still no garantee for bf success!. In The Netherlands (sometimes seen as the Mekka for natural birthing by other western cultures) 60% of pregnant women plan to homebirth, half of them actually do. The rest is filterred out (by the very thorough checking system of midwifes in private practice) during pregnancy or birth. Hospital births are as unmedicated as possible, painmedication is not offerd routinely, though one can ask and get some. Epidurals are mostly just used for c.s. and induction is mostly saved for pregnancies that are going to be more than 42 weeks or for mothers and\or babies in distress. C.s. rates still not much over 10% nationwide. Mothers and babies are send home within 24 hours if healthy and further taken care of by a trained and state-certified maternity caretaker. So, all looks well for good breastfeeding start... Fact is that only 2 thirds of moms start pp, then a sharp drop in the first weeks and by 3 months only just over 20% still breastfeeds... As long as most hcp`s do onlý say that breast is best but not act on that, as long as drs, midwifes, maternitynurses and -caretakers do not have any substantial and qualitative bf education, moms are not stimulated to choose bf and if they do start do not get the support and knowledgable help they need if problems arise (and you bet they do arise if hcp`s think nipple shields are the way to prevent and solve any latch problems). I do not intend to tun all hcp`s down and ofcourse not all are like that but just to illustrate the situation here: I work in the province Limburg, with the lowest bf rates of the country. I participate in a university research project on the influence of LC intervention (upon referral by hcp`s) on bf rates (mostly duration). While in our region as many mothers intend to bf as elswere in the country, many less actually do start and even less continue over the first week or so. So when starting the project we imagined lots of referrals from the maternity servicies ans wellbabyclnic nurses or drs to have more moms continue despite problems. Well, the project runs over half a year by now and I had 2 (yes: two!) referrals, one collegue had ab. 5 and the other a couple more. (the interventrion area is devided into 3 parts with an LC each). By the way, in this province hospital birth rate are slightly higher as well, as are repiratory ilnesses and allergies... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Gonneke van Veldhuizen, IBCLC MOM, LLLL, primary schoolteacher Hiilensberg, Germany *********************************************** 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