To Virginia T and everyone else, 
Very true words, about the joy of seeing someone bloom when they've had the
encouragement they needed.  It is so humbling to see how little
encouragement it takes, too.

Virginia, you are long since officially qualified as a dinosaur of the
species 'Lactosaurus supportiva regina' - Elisabet Helsing's term for anyone
who has been a supporter to breastfeeding mothers for at least 25 years.

I just read Virginia's other post, and loved the way she put it 'I always
worry when a number for feeding frequency is cited'. Me too! Me too!  I have
finally managed to get most of my colleagues to refer to babies that are not
being allowed to self-regulate because of our fear that they won't get
enough nourishment, as 'at least 8 feeds/24 hr' instead of 'every 3 hours'
babies.  It isn't perfect but it's better. Don't know how many mothers I've
had contact with who before day 5 had gotten fixated on every 3 hourly feeds
because baby showed incipient signs of possibly becoming ever so slightly
jaundiced, or the like.  In most cases this fixation caused the baby to be
fed far less frequently than if we'd helped mother learn baby's hunger cues.
Recently I heard from the mother of a baby several months old with a long
list of odd feeding difficulties, and was puzzled by her report that the
baby was especially difficult when woken for night feeds.  I asked why baby
was being wakened for night feeds, and it turned out to be because the
maternity ward staff on day two had said the baby was too small to sleep
through the night.  Baby had a normal birth weight and a completely
unremarkable pattern of growth thereafter.  Guess how relieved this mother
was to find out she didn't have to set her alarm clock twice a night any
more.  Sheesh.

Rachel Myr
Kristiansand, Norway

 "I think that taking life seriously means something such as this: that
whatever man does on this planet has to be done in the lived truth of the
terror of creation, of the grotesque, of the rumble of panic underneath
everything. Otherwise it is false."  --Ernest Becker

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