There have been several excellent posts already to the original inquiry.

La Leche League has excellent materials on their website (www.llli.org) on
breastfeeding and the law.  The late, great Liz Baldwin wrote several
articles on this topic ... and encouraged all parents to work it out-work it
out-work it out.  Right now it seems like the "only" issue is lactation and
separation .... but this baby is about to embark on a lifetime of having
parents in two different househoulds.  There is far more than breastfeeding
at stake.  Developing a healthy plan to meet the BABY's best interests can
be hard when the adults are feeling are raw and wounded.  The court should
be examining what the baby needs right now for appropriate and healthy
development ... with a recognition that these needs change in time-and-space
as the child matures.

If you are an IBCLC testifying or offering expert opinion in a legal matter,
your role is as an EXPERT on LACTATION.  And, as such, you have to be
dispassionate about your advice.  There are, as others have noted, instances
where babies and toddlers can be separated from their mothers at night.
Imagine, for example, this couple is happily married -- and grandma offers
to take the 18-monther for the night so the couple can have a second
honeymoon at the swanky hotel downtown.  Are we still itchy-scratchy?  If
you are to have any credibility as an expert you have to be willing to see
-- and testify about -- both sides of an issue.

Now, that does not prevent you from offering expert opinion about THIS baby
at THIS point in his development.  We all know 18-monthers who could easily
stay with grandma for that parents-night-out .... and others who would be
traumatized by the separation of even one night.  Now, we are straying into
child development issues .... and the court may well ask wonder why an
EXPERT in LACTATION is testifying about child development issues.  (That is
when you whip out your IBLCE Scope of Practice and demonstrate that an IBCLC
has been certified as a clinical expert in BF and human lactation, including
assessment of and knowledge about developmental stages.)

This is NOT about breastfeeding.  It is about crafting a stable, safe and
nurturing environment for a child who is thrust, through no fault or design
of his own, into a family of separated and perhaps contentious parents.


-- 
Liz Brooks JD IBCLC FILCA
Wyndmoor, PA, USA

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