"Their "dreamworld" consists of epidurals with the first contraction..."

That's no joke! I got out of hospital nsg. before epidurals were common for
childbirth (only docors'wives and other occasional bigwigs got them), so see
mostly the after-effects in the poor little babies that can't get it
together to figure out how to suck. But I saw the most appalling thing on TV
last week: some kind of obscure TV station (maybe "Discovery"?)has a show
that consists of the pregnancy and birth stories of different couples - I
was really shocked at how what I would think of as highly medicalized births
were shown as normal, over and over again. Anyway, the thing that *really*
kicked me in the teeth in this episode I caught was that the woman was in
the hospital "with her epidural already in place" at 2-3 cm. dilated!

"nurses to do most of the care of babies in hospital, a nursery to send baby
off to at night and baby nurses to do night feeds!"

Doesn't it make you wonder when nurses became transformed from medically-
educated people, there to safeguard your & the baby's health and provide
support and instruction when needed, into servants about on the level of a
good level-headed babysitter? It doesn't take a nurse to do those things!

Cathy Bargar, RN, IBCLC Ithaca NY

             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html