When my son Chance was born 5 years ago at 32 weeks in a govt. hospital an Hong Kong, it was made very clear that I was not welcome in the NICU and Breastfeeding there was out of the question. ( I did it ant way, and they put screens around me so nobody could "see" what I was doing) Since it was baby #5 and I had been a LLLL for 12 years, I had lots of confidence. I made a big show out of scrubbing and gowning and told them that I was as "clean" as any of the hospital personell and that if they could touch my baby, so could I. They complied. It may have been that they figured I wasn't going away, or the fact that they were flabbergasted, or that I was so much bigger than *all* of them (I'm 5'8"). I think that speaking with confidence is that you know what you're doing is really important. Unfortunately, when you are the mom of a NICU baby, confidence is often the last thing you have. (Can you believe that I was the ONLY breastfeeding mother in the whole hospital! I hope that the BF rates in Hong Kong are better now (they were 5% in 1990. Nancy Sherwood in Perth, West Australia where the temperature today was 41.1 Celsius (that's 106 F)!