Jan wrote <What I am denigrating is the entire attitude that goes into prenatal care, labor and delivery as one enormous need for technology because a woman isn't to be trusted to do it without it all.> I write as someone who spent the final 20 years of my working life as coordinator of a large county public health prenatal service, providing casefinding and referral of high risk mothers and offering prenatal care during the first 35 weeks of pregnancy for 600-800 low-risk pregnant women each year. (It provided a wonderful opportunity for anticipatory education about breastfeeding!) It is sad when a woman interprets her care and testing as a sign of her own inadequacy. Certainly, explaining the "need" for testing should be "owned" by the HCP, and not "blamed" on the mother's body. The semantics certainly need improvement if this is the way it comes across to an individual mother. In truth, it is really an admission of the legal and ethical fear of the inadequacy of the care-giver's crystal ball. In today's liability climate, the HCP's failure to practice according to the prevailing standards might well be risking his/her professional demise. The sky-high insurance rates paid by those who care for mothers during birth, even the labor and delivery nurses themselves, is an indication of this climate. Good outcomes of pregnancy and birth are seen as a human right, and rightfully so. We have a much longer way to go regarding good outcomes for breastfeeding. If something that compromises the health of mother and baby can be discovered by today's technology, and that technology is not explained, offered and properly utilized, the opportunity is missed to help those comparatively few mothers and babies who need extra safeguards. Too bad the boundaries are so often "trespassed" by brainwashing the mother about just whose needs this technology is meeting! And how sad that the "shoe is still so often on the other foot" when it comes to complicating the initiation of breastfeeding. But as yet "they know not what they do". That, IMHO, is where we need to concentrate our energies by educating both parents and HCP's, and choosing our battles wisely. Just my $.02. Jean ****************** K. Jean Cotterman RNC, IBCLC Dayton, Ohio USA *********************************************** 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