THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, Darillyn! For your insight into what I see as a recent phenomenon in breastfeeding evolution. I have been in this business for 25 years and am very concerned about recent trends. I used to see mastitis maybe once every couple of years and then it was in a mom whose baby was at least a few months old. Now I am hearing from at least one mom every couple weeks or so who has a full-blown mastitis and a 2 week- old baby! The history is the same - baby is nursing well, but mom is pumping to increase her supply (why? she states baby is gaining well); pumping to see how much she is giving the baby; pumping so that she can have a supply of milk; pumping so that baby can be given a bottle every day, and on and on and on. What happened to exclusive nursing? A mother should be taught from day one (ideally, prenatally) that she is to practice exclusive nursing and to ONLY use pump/bottle in situations where she is separated from her baby (work, school, occasional night out). At least 2/3 of the mothers I see are stay-at-home moms and never have I seen more pumping done than among this population of mothers! They are being told by everyone from the lactation consultant to their doctor to their next-door neighbor that they will not be successful with breastfeeding unless they have (and use!) the top of the line breast pump. I think lactation consultants are right at the top of the list of "selling" the idea that nursing cannot occur successfully unless she is pumping, using lanolin (what happened to mother's own milk?), breast shells, nipple shields, galactagogues, supplementers, etc., etc., etc. Not every mother is going to have problems necessitating the use of these aids (and that's what they are - tools or aids to the establishment of exclusive breastfeeding!) so why are they pushed at mothers? Nursing is not low-tech. Nursing is no-tech: a breast and a baby! It's sad that we apparently have lost sight of that fact. Pam Hirsch, RN,BSN,CLC Clinical Lead, Lactation Services Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital Barrington, IL USA who strives to put nursing back into the hands of mothers and their babies *********************************************** 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