Someone posed a question about women having different breastfeeding outcomes despite attending the same prenatal breastfeeding classes. Although I am a big fan of both childbirth and prenatal breastfeeding sessions, education is just one of the Three Essentials (my terminology.) The other two are support and motivation. Some mothers will fly to the moon and back in order to make it work and others will quit from the smallest discomfort. Another major factor is where the mother gave birth and what kind of experience she had. Besides the often unreasonable amount of chemicals mothers and babies get, the pair is subject to a host of medical and hospital procedures within a short period of time... blood, urine, blood pressure and internal exams; injections, IV's and sometimes surgery. Then there's the lack of privacy, hospital food, clothing and timetables which make the mother feel like she's "ill." (In fact, the Hebrew word for patient is choleh/cholah which literally means sick.) If the baby has spent some time in the nursery, he has been bathed, diapered, pricked and examined by a number of rushed health care providers. What about the temperature in the nursery? What about the overhead lights on 24 hours a day? What about the telephones? I could go on and on... I'm getting stressed just thinking about it. Most mothers who come to my office within days of giving birth in government hospitals sit on the sofa and cry. They feel like they've been though a war and are hurting physically and even more so psychologically. Yes, the hospitals are better than they used to be and recently they've invested money in the wards - mostly cosmetic changes- but they've still got a long way to go. While I'm still uncertain about the safety of home births - at least in Israel at present - I can understand why more and more mothers are opting for them. Has anyone else noticed the difference 3 or 4 days post-partum? The babies are RELAXED. The mothers are more relaxed. Instead of concentrating on the PROBLEMS, she is able to concentrate on her FAMILY. Even if she has concerns or questions, she doesn't feel so overwhelmed. I don't think we can underestimate the damage stress can cause to do breastfeeding. Susan Nachman-Srebrnik, IBCLC Ranana, Israel (who has had to pick up the pieces too many times.) *********************************************** 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