We teach a one hour class at Babies R Us as La Leche League Leaders. We 
start with introductions around the room and ask why they came. I like 
the idea of asking them to say a benefit - we'll try this next time. We 
then go briefly to advantages, but we find that we really need to 
emphasize how to latch on and get off to a good start. We talk the how 
childbirth interventions might affect breastfeeding so don't give up if 
you have a sleepy baby who feeds poorly at the breast, the asymetrical 
latch on, active sucking and milk transfer, bowel movements, weight 
loss/gain, how often and "how long" (I know every baby is different but 
we are trying to teach them to watch their baby and learn breastfeeding 
behavior). We encourage moms to go to LLL meetings during their 
pregnancy and call early if they have problems. We give a list of web 
sites and books on breastfeeding, childbirth, and parenting so that we 
don't have to go into details on everything. We tell them to do some 
reading on their own and decide for themselves. We get a lot of 
complaints in this class about hospital policies and how the first baby 
didn't nurse well, mom had no milk, baby was jaundiced and needed 
bottles, etc. so we decided that emphasizing how to breastfeed was more 
helpful than just saying why breastfeeding is important. We are also 
doing this for free so we can not afford to purchase handouts (we can 
not sell books or memberships at this class).

Kathy Eng, BSW, IBCLC, LLL Leader

             ***********************************************

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