Dear Lactnetters,  I just wanted to commiserate with Ro Anderson regarding
nipple confusion.  I am an LLL Leader and work with a lot of moms from our
local Navy Hospital in Oak Harbor.  This is the same hospital that Debbie
and Kathy wrote in about covering a portion the Kiwanis/LLL poster.  On that
matter, I would like to report that my husband, a Family Practice physician
at the hospital, saw the paper covering part of the poster and ripped it
down!  He was quite annoyed!  One of the problems we face is the constant
change in staff.  Kathy and I teach the breastfeeding portion of the
hospital prenatal classes.  We introduce LLL and talk about everything from
nipple confusion to nighttime parenting.  We get pretty good feedback.
However, we have two brand new pediatricians who have been at the hospital
for a month or two and who are both just out of residency.  We have seen a
huge increase in the number of calls we get as a result of misinformation
these two give out.  As a matter of fact, one mom questioned the use of a
bottle to feed her baby (she had attended our class) and the doc told her
not to listen to those LLL people, they don't know what they are talking
about.  He apparantly is unaware we teach the breastfeeding classes there.
Anyway, it is quite frustrating to have to start over with new doctors and
to have to worry about the problems they are creating.  Of course, we only
know of the problems occurring with the moms that call us.  I am sure there
are others!  We've talked about having moms write to the hospital but most
moms don't understand how they were sabotaged and feel they were just one of
the moms who couldn't breastfeed.  They take it as a personal failure rather
than something that could have  been avoided.  And we find that most of the
moms do give up.  Overcoming nipple confusion in the early postpartum days
is just more than most are prepared to take on.  I am looking into avenues
on how we can reach some kind of working relationship with these two doctors
(they are the whole pediatric dept., thank goodness we also have Family
Practice) given there obvious distaste for LLL.  Is it possible to
educate/convince a physician that nipple confusion does exist?  One of them
has made it plain that he knows it does not!  I wish he could come to some
of our home visits and take some of our calls!  If anyone out there has any
suggestions as to how we can have an impact and help things out, I sure
would appreciate it.  Thanks for listening.

Laura Rookstool, LLL Leader, Coupeville, WA