Alison,
I surely do appreciate your post. I think that you are so very qualified
and experienced with this particular issue (frenulum) that you feel very
comfortable advocating for the families here. And you are so right,
that's how it should be - power with.
This brings home the fact that LCs need a standard education base. How
did all of us become IBCLCs? Not many I bet got any standardized
training/education. Of course this is a hot issue and being looked at
now by ILCA and IBLCE. How many of us were taught by a professor/mentor
about frenulum assessment, etc. What about "sucking dysfunction",
mechanics of swallowing, etc, etc. All of our backgrounds are so varied
and alot of it probably book learning and general bf counseling til we
sat the exam and began "practicing" and learning more each day.  But we
often "wing it" and figure things out as we go along, conferring with
colleagues, and asking on lactnet - as evidenced by many posts on
lactnet.
Personally I worked as an peds, then nicu nurse. I was a bf counselor in
the nicu - a role created by several of us. When I went to grad school,
I mentored with 2 IBCLCs at 2 different hosps, but at that time ('87)
their roles and practices were very basic and they had to be RNs, so
that colored their roles too. Then when I sat the exam, it was not
really to become an LC, but just to sort of prove I was a bf advocate
and had some verifiable knowledge. This really needs to change. Then
because so many have an RN background that, I think, IMHO, this can
affect how they interact with drs. They are coming from the nurses role
(at least in US) of always working under a dr, under a dr's orders.
Alison, and all on this thread, thanks for contributing to this
important debate.

Laurie Wheeler, RN, MN, IBCLC
Hosp LC
Louisiana Breastfeeding MediaWatch Campaign
Violet Louisiana, USA
mailto:[log in to unmask]


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