Being supportive and caring can generate all manner of information from
clients about their home remedies, particularly those handed down through
the generations.

Many years ago, I learned about the use of fresh urine-filled diapers being
used among African American women to wipe the baby's face (to get rid of
the neonatal acne) and also thrush/thrash.  I also learned how some have
been taught to help a baby with a stuffy nose (they suck it out with their
own--mother's--mouth).

One also learns about other fears, such as how long to wait before washing
one's ahir. One beautiful great grandmother (her daughter and granddaughter
had not breastfed, but she did) told me that she was taught you had to wait
a week. Was she ever pleasantly suprirsed and pleased that some honky was
happy to help her great granddaughter "suck the kid" as she put it.

It pays to keep one's mouth closed and ears open in order to learn these things.




Def. of LC service: "We are all faced with a series of great opportunities
brilliantly disguised as impossible situations."
Kathleen G. Auerbach,PhD, IBCLC (Homewood, IL)- [log in to unmask]