When I wrote about my concern for lack of infrastructure support for breastfeeding, I certainly didn't mean in any way to slight the services of hospt.- based LCs. My point about them is that they are often not in control either of the way their salaries are funded and are often at the mercy of cost cutting practices. I see the hospt. and priv. pract. LCs working well together in Austin, and nothing makes me happier than knowing there are good hospt.- based LCs getting moms off to a good start. But short-sighted policies established by hospts. that like to MARKET bfg support without really providing much of it has over-whelmed most of the hospt.- based LCs I know. They are over-worked, and their case loads are unreasonably large, preventing them from spending adequate teaching time with struggling dyads. This sometimes results in a kind of cheer-leading for bfg that fails to identify and address red flag issues. When the vulnerable dyads go home, often there is no safety net. We need both hospt. and community based LCs, and we need for lactation to be recognized as such a significant predictor of good health for the mother and baby that it gets invested in. LC services shouldn't be a hospt. service funded from retail sales, but should be an integral part of the budget for nursing care. The LCs should be seeing the problem cases, teaching the staff to help the routine initiation cases, and the LC should be recognized as a vital part of the team, not a nicety that can be dispensed with when the economy gets shakey. In fact, with the incredible erosion of social support systems in the US during this Recession, it could be argued that the preventative cost savings accrued from bfg make bfg support the LAST service that should be jetisoned. Barbara Wilson-Clay, BS, IBCLC Austin Lactation Associates LactNews Press www.lactnews.com *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] 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