Nikki writes: <She laments the fragmentation of medical care in the US, where the doctors that catch the babies have little notion that what they do makes the work for the folks that care for these babies. Dr. Lawrence Gartner said as much to me 15 years ago, that there is little communication between OBs and pediatricians.> Nikki, this has long been my observation, so much so that back in 1975, in one of the very first talks I ever gave, for CB educators, I remember creating a slide that had the word 'obstetrics' on one side of a large space (which I likened to a canyon), the word 'pediatrics' on the other side, connected with a curved bridge above labeled 'perinatal medicine' and another curved bridge below labeled 'peripartal nursing'. This was long before LCdom was ever mentioned in professional circles. I had personally decided that trying to persuade docs directly was definitely not my forte, and only a waste of my time and energy. As a full-time employed mother, I was considered ineligible in those days for the LLLL route, and so I decided to go around the docs and go directly to the parents, and thus my short 4 year career as a childbirth educator and developing a separate prenatal breastfeeding class, one of the first in the nation to my knowledge, for anticipatory guidance. Not that much seems to have changed as far as collaboration by OB's and Peds. Do you (or anyone) have any such statements of Dr. Gartner or others in print that I might use as a reference for something I'm currently working on? That is such a pregnant phrase : "the doctors that catch the babies have little notion that what they do makes the work (much harder) for the folks that care for these babies." There are so many ways this plays out, for moms and babies as well as for those who care for them. Of course, my particular narrow focus is overhydration and excess subareolar tissue resistance, which seems to have gotten much more common than in 1975! Jean ***************** K. Jean Cotterman RNC, IBCLC Dayton, OH USA *********************************************** 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 email list is powered by LISTSERV (R). There is only one LISTSERV. To learn more, visit: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html