Hi everybody, Thanks to everybody who congratulated me on my great day. I'm still feeling pleased and I've had a couple of calls directly related to the day. I hadn't been able to read any Lactnet since Thursday because I've been too busy helping my son to get ready to go to university. We took him to Cambridge today, so its back to the computer. Jane asked if I could give some more information about my talk. Magda mentioned that UK health visitors are often completely uninterested in breastfeeding and that is what I was expecting, so I decided to keep it simple, giving the risks of formula feeding while presenting breastfeeding as normal, not superior. Then I went on to positive statements, each starting "I can breastfeed...". I got these statements from mothers at a La Leche League meeting, asking them think of every reason they'd ever been told for not breastfeeding and turn them positive. They included, "I can breastfeed, I have enough milk; even if I smoke; and eat hot curries; a big baby; a small baby; and take prescription drugs; everytime the baby wants to," etc, etc. The first questions were about drugs--a big issue. I kept referring back to the known risks of formula that I had given at the beginning. These were followed by the "everytime the baby wants to" concerns. This led nicely into cluster feeding and following the baby's guide. I gave them reasons for this, telling them, frequent feeding increases the fat concentration of the milk; long gaps between feeds increases the water content. I had my copy of Breastfeeding--Biocultural Perspectives, with me. I held it up and said "the research for this is so well established that it is in a book!" I didn't feel the need for any more recent research and neither did they. The health visitor who said she was going to change her practice told me she had only breastfed one week with each of her children, thinking she didn't have enough milk because her babies wanted to feed frequently. She also would suggest mothers give water if the baby wouldn't go "long enough". Giving an explantion for a baby's behaviour that made sense made all the difference. I also told them that I didn't have an explanation for those babies who happily establish a 3-4 hourly feeding pattern, but those babies were also normal if they had chosen it themselves, hoping I wouldn't start getting calls from worried mothers convinced their babies weren't getting enough fat! Jill Dye LLLleader, England *********************************************** 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