I am fascinated, amused, and saddened by the thought that hand expression is considered unrealistic and too romanticized to be seriously considered by our profession. I am fascinated because it really surprises me that people believe that. I am amused because I think most of us that have used hand expression would never call it romantic. And I am saddened because I think hand expression is not unrealistic. In fact, it's about as real as you can get when looking for a way to release some milk without a baby. Interestingly, the modern dairy farmer milks his cows by hand prior to using a milking machine. In "The Seven Habits of Highly Successful Milking Routines" from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, they found that milking by hand before using a milking machine stimulated the letdown and ultimately increased milk yields. It was worth doing despite the extra time it took. Why this difference between the human hand on milk production versus the wonder of the mighty chrome and plastic machine? Don't know. Maybe these dairy farmers are just being romantic and trying to live in the past. Maybe we should give them a good shot of realism. I am not sure that Ashley Montague is considered relevant in this day and age of technological innovation and recombinant DNA. But during the years that I was a breastfeeding mother, much of what he wrote in his book, "Touching" helped me make sense of my experience as a breastfeeding mother. A quote from his book seems relevant to this discussion: "To shut off any one of the senses is to reduce the dimensions of our reality, and to the extent that that occurs we lose touch with it..." One might suspect that hand expression puts us in touch with reality because we have a greater degree of skin-to-skin contact. I find this whole issue on equipment rather telling, telling in that we have entered an era where we no longer believe in the richness, warmth and imperative nature of skin contact. Where we are being indoctrinated into believing that human milk is so diseased and dirty that we cannot suggest or even whisper wet-nursing. Where we are being told to help moms be realistic about their expectations of breastfeeding and motherhood. But whose reality, whose truth is it? Valerie W. McClain, IBCLC *********************************************** 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