Debra, 

Thank you so much for making your research/references available to us all!  Many of us need it "at the touch of a button" to create presentations and answer questions from health care providers.

I am in the middle of creating another one of my yearly presentations (no fee) to 1st year medical students.  I asked them for questions they had, and for a change (I'm almost sorry I did, it has taken me 3 days to get the information in the form they would respect/could use), I received over 30 questions.

The theme seems to be: can you REALLY prove that breastfeeding and skin to skin is what is best for infants?  (Students, after all, want references and evidence!)

AAARRGGHH!  (I guess I needed to let that one out, and you're my "safe place"...

SINCE WHEN do we have to PROVE that:
 - unmedicated childbirth is NORMAL for normal mothers and babies
- human milk is NORMAL for human babies just like seal milk is for baby seals....
- mothers and babies have a NORMAL need to be close early and often (yes, my "la Leche league" background still oozes from my pores!) in order to stabilize everything from vital signs to  stress factors of both, and enhance their newly-developing relationship...and get to know each other...
- NORMAL babies need time to suck (not pacifers, but mother's skin, knuckles, breast and finally nipple) and smell and hear and feel the body they knew best - extending this outward from this safe haven to include dad...siblings...grandparents - instead of having multiple handlings by a confusing number of people and a variety of items inserted in the mouth?
- Healthy mothers can eat NORMAL diets, have NORMAL amounts of activity, go about their activities of daily living and care for their healthy babies 

Now I have to have references to address each of their questions!

I'm due for this tomorrow, and have been working on it since Sunday, so please don't take this as a request for you to do my work - just ranting...!

Jeanette Panchula, BSW, RN, PHN, IBCLC
Vacaville, CA

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