My heartfelt thanks to all of you for your support and suggestions in dealing with our OB's and thier accusations. I wanted to give you all an update on the situation. My department director and our patient care supervisor will be meeting with the chief of OB on Tuesday to discuss the situation. The LC's are pointedly NOT invited. This is our director's decision. Yes, I am angry, but there's nothing I can do about it. At least our patient care supervisor is the actual author of the handouts and is extremely supportive of breastfeeding. In answer to Elise's post. I agree, timing and audience are critical. We do not give these handouts to mothers who have chosen to bottle feed. They are only given to mothers who are breastfeeding and have requested a pacifier or a supplement that is not medically necessary. They are presented as a means of giving the mother all the information before she makes her decision and we are careful to reassure her we will support whatever choice she makes, we just want her to make an informed choice. Our goal is to prevent mothers from getting to the point where they are asking at all, but it does come up. Many mothers have actually told us they appreciate the handouts because they have something to share with friends or family when they ask "Where's the pacifier?" or "Why don't you just give him some formula?" Unfortunately, we have never kept track of the feedback, so nobody can remember any specific patients. As for shifting the burden back to them, I strongly suggested that they be asked to bring their references, but that suggestion went nowhere fast, so here we are on the defensive once again. To give you all an idea of what we are up against, one physician actually said that we "could increase the rates of shaken baby syndrome by denying access to pacifiers." Of course, we aren't denying them at all, and the allegation is not backed by any sort of research. In fact, as my husband, a pediatric telephone triage nurse pointed out, the majority of the inconsolable baby/stressed out parents calls he gets are from bottle feeding parents coping with ear infections or GI distress,the exact population that uses pacifiers the most. ARRRRRGH So, we are doing our best with a crummy situation. In the meantime, would anyone who has notes from Paula Meier's talk at the academy of breastfeeding medicine conference be willing to fax them to me? I left her a voice mail, but haven't heard back yet and want to at least have something in the packet we're putting together. My fax # is (414) 805- 3960. Thanks again to all. You can't imagine how much your support and encouragement means. It's easy to feel isolated in a hospital environment and it helps a lot to know you're all pulling for us. I will let you know what happens...... Barb Fibich, RN, IBCLC *********************************************** 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