Camille's gone and I don't have anybody else to talk to about this.  I just
recognized my symptoms yesterday and realized that I am grieving for babies
and mothers.  A lot.  There have been several frustrating, sacrificial
incidents lately related to breastfeeding.  One involved the hospital I
sometimes do Lactation Rounds for when their lactation nurse is off.  All
three breastfeeding mothers I saw related that their babies had received
bottles and that no one had been in to help them with breastfeeding.  The
same day I witnessed a pediatrician checking a newborn baby girl.  He was
flipping her this way and that (I don't mean roughly or to hurt her) and
poking and checking; she was crying; then he left her alone in the "warming
tray" and she continued to cry, all alone in a hostile--albeit warm--
environment.  Later a nurse came by, propped her elbow up and leaned the baby
against her arm and stuffed a bottle in the baby's mouth while she, the
nurse, looked around with a bored, disgusted look on her face.  (There are
other hospitals in the area that do have labor/delivery/recovery/mom and baby
stay together from labor to going home, so don't think we're totally backward
here.)  The other involved a mother of a premature infant; mother was pumping
and giving breastmilk in a bottle when she should have been putting baby to
breast; a whole lot of other things were going on. To make a long story very
short, she quit breastfeeding.  When the nutritionist and I went out to
enroll her and the baby in the Perinatal High Risk Management Program we
found mother just totally exhausted managing all alone with a tiny, tiny baby
and a 3-year-old.  Breastfeeding would have solved 90% of this mom's and
baby's problems.  I just wanted to cry.  And I wanted to take her and the
children to my home and take care of them and nurture them and give them the
world until they were able to take it on themselves.  I just have this
incredibly sad feeling about these and so many other needless sacrifices.  I
know you can imagine them--Mississippi, like so many other third world
countries has such a long way to go in so many areas, breastfeeding being
just one major one.  I want to cry.  And I know that you all understand where
I'm coming from and why there are some days when I think being a discount
store door greeter would just be such a lovely job to have.  Sorry for the
length.  Signing off.  Keitha--in South Mississippi where it's a beautiful
day and I just can't get into it.