Dear Jennifer, you said "It was so painful for me at our last bf support group mtg. to sit there longing to nurse my own daughter while surrounded by other nursing moms I am supposed to be helping! " I feel what you say eloquently expresses the bizarre situation we are all in as breastfeeding workers where bfing has become part of the professionalised medical technical domain and hcps are expected to 'make it happen' for other women no matter where they are with breastfeeding themselves. I have known midwives who returned to work when their babies were 10 weeks old, weaned them because bf was not going well or because it was going to be hard to work shifts and bf or, even, because they had no access to electric breast pump ("You can't use that one on the ward. That's for mothers".) -- and are then expected to plunge straight in to helping facilitate other women to establish an experience their work has partly prevented them from having. Am I the only one to think this is one of the things which needs to most fundementally change before our cultures become in any microscopic way breastfeeding friendly? Please hang in there, Jennifer. Magda Sachs Breastfeeding Supporter, BfN, UK *********************************************** 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