Laurie wrote:
I have to
> wonder, in other countries, other cultures where BF is sort of taken for
> granted, is positioning such a big deal?

Laurie - An interesting question! I'm sure that other Lactnetters are
better qualified than I to answer this - but I can say that all the time I
worked as a midwife in a bush clinic in Ghana, I was never once asked - not
indeed saw the need - to assist with positioning. I was aware of
grandmothers and the local nurse aides sometimes sitting beside new mothers
as they fed in the first day or so and gesticulating in a 'do it this way'
fashion - but *very* low key. I've always presumed that because
breastfeeding is so openly done, anywhere, anytime, that *everybody* - just
*knew* what a 'well latched' baby looked like - in contrast to the UK where
many, many more people have seen close-up a baby sucking from a teat -
rather than suckling at a breast.

When I'm doing antenatal classes, I'm always aware of a kind of subdued
gasp when I show a close-up photo of a well-positioned baby followed by a
'cut-away' diagram (the nipple's stretched *that much*?! - mouth *wide*
open?! - surely that baby's *eating* the breast?!). Even my sister, a
farmer with vast experience of sheep and lambs, was concerned when she saw
my 6 month old baby breastfeeding - 'he's too big for you' - ie. he's not
just sucking the nipple - he's forced to take a load of breast too.

Hannah
(midwife and National Childbirth Trust breastfeeding counsellor, UK)
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