>Jack wrote:
>>We *could* help support breastfeeding mothers, LC's, physicians andOT's,
but I only wish OT's spent as much time studying breastfeeding as
>they do bottle feeding.  And even spent half the time helping mothers
>and babies to breastfeed as they do helping them to bottle feed.<

Geoff:
>Please provide some accepted measure to back this statement.  It is pure
>anecdote and wholly incorrect where I practice. Therapy centers on the
>mother's wishes, not what the therapist wants.

Geoff, I have *never* *ever* in my LIFE had a therapist ask me what I WANTED
in terms of therapy for my son.  He has Down Syndrome and has had speech
therapy, occupational therapy, and physical therapy since he was 4 months
old, and he just turned 12.  Where in the world do you work that the
"mother's wishes" are what guides the therapy?????  OTs, especially, are
notorious in this town, for spending (wasting?) enormous amounts of time and
money teaching children things they already know how to do.  Like the
semester a new OT spent teaching Peter to go up and down stairs when he
could already do it (sure, he was pretending he couldn't, just to jerk her
chain, but she could read his chart and found out he had mastered that 7
years before).  Or the time an OT spent 6 hours teaching Peter how to put on
his shoes, which he already knew how to do.

The point is that until you give us some references -- you keep referring to
the literature and the videos, but on LactNet we usually insist on the
references -- author, date, title, journal, volume, pages, name of video and
who made it, etc. -- so we can check things out ourselves.

Finally, the old "this is the way we've always done it" -- is not worth the
time it takes to say it.  We KNOW that bottle-feeding is dangerous for
infants, even if they don't aspirate.  We KNOW that bottle-feeding endangers
the breastfeeding relationship.  So "the way we've always done it" has been
proven to be unhealthy for children.  Cup-feeding has not.

I'm still awaiting answers to my earlier queries about your stance.  We
don't want you to feel flamed, or to leave LactNet, as we all are learning a
lot and trying to understand your perspective.  But I find it very curious
that you respond to some issues raised and ignore others, and have yet to
post a single reference other than a name in parentheses.





Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Anthropology and Nutrition
Texas A&M University