I just checked the National Sexual Assault Hotline and their statistics
indicate that 1 in 6 women have been sexually assaulted. I am curious about
the scope of this problem. Could the people that have identified this as a
problem please tell us the number of hospital assaulted women you see in a
year and the total number of clients you see in a year? Rachel Wahl RN
IBCLC
>Date: Sat, 29 Jul 2006 22:17:01 EDT
>From: Pamela Mazzella Di Bosco <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: using the word rape
>
>Rape is a strong word. It is an act of violence. It is criminal offense.
>It is most often against women. The feelings are deep, lifelong and
>painful.
>Years later you can talk about the experience and feel the same emotions,
>the fear, the helplessness.
>
>Okay, now find me another word that is exactly as strong to call what is
>happening to women in birth and breastfeeding 'help' in hospitals and I
>will use
>it. I could use a word to offer them so they can put a name to it. When I
>am
>talking to women, they are crying and the words they use are fear, pain,
>helplessness, overpowered, defeated, degraded. Some of these women have
>been
>raped, they recognize the feelings well. I think we do need to pay
>attention
>to what is happening to women today because it is hurting them and hurting
>their babies. We need to remember our statistics about women and abuse
>and
>assume the women we are working with have likely suffered some form of
>abuse and
>proceed with utmost respect and gentleness. The sad thing, many women
>just
>assume this type of treatment was necessary, and to add to their other
>feelings they also feel guilt for feeling the way they do about something
>that just
>had to be done to them....it was for their own good, for their babies own
>good, and they should not be so upset about it. How wrong is that for a
>woman...to feel so wrong at a time in her life when she should feel so
>wonderful?
>
>I understand we want to reserve certain words for what they are meant for.
>But inappropriate touch is not a strong enough expression of what happens
>and
>it certainly does not meet the emotions it brings up in the women who
>experience it. The original post said the 'mother' used this word to
>express what
>it felt like. She is not the first. I have had mothers use that word to
>describe how they felt, I have used it when I hear the story shared and
>the
>mother acts like it was all her fault....and she should have done more to
>stop
>it, and if only she wasn't doing 'fill in the blank'....so much like a
>rape
>victim blaming herself for the violence against her. Maybe the mom didn't
>use a
>word we like, but it was her word, her feelings, and what we should be
>talking about is not how wrong that word is, but how horrible that it is
>how a new
>mother felt when being helped to feed her baby.
>
>Take care,
>Pam MazzellaDiBosco, IBCLC, RLC
>Florida
>
>
> ***********************************************
>
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