Bravo, Chris. I really like the frame work you offer presenting the LC's skills as similar to the midwife's skills in managing labor. Care is supposed to be individuated because we work with individuals. There is no "one size fits all" to breastfeeding support. Each dyad is going to present a unique set of challanges that require helpers to carefully craft appropriate responses. Sometimes the best thing to do is nothing. Complete hands off. Sometimes the best thing to do is going to involve a lot of hands on. I currently am spending time mentoring. It is fun to have people along on consults who have mostly academic knowledge but have never seen some of the things that challenge us in practice. I spent an interesting afternoon with one such student last week. She got to see a woman with hypoplastic breasts and a history of low milk supply problems and her second child, a little boy with FTT (5 oz below birth wt at 3 wks postpartum). The second client had incredibly flat nipples and significant engorgement. From another examining room, the LC called the student in briefly to see a baby with a tongue-tie. So I think the idea of having LC candidates shadow working LCs is a wonderful opportunity to observe the various ways we must tailor our interventions to specifically target the individual problems of real people. The words "always" and "never" are not useful when considering strategic interventions. Barbara Wilson-Clay BSEd, IBCLC Austin Lactation Associates http://www.lactnews.com *********************************************** 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