Patricia Gima hit the nail right on the head in her post of 12/21, with the
story of the new parents and the ped's advice to give formula after nsg.,
etc., etc!!! I can't tell you how many times I have heard this same story,
over and over and over again! From docs that I wouldn't hesitate for a
heartbeat to trust if I had a truly sick child...

Why do they do that??? I never thought of it quite so harshly before (I
think I've heard it so often I just take it for granted by now), but, come
to think of it, why shouldn't a pediatrician know as much as an
averagely-educated set of new parents? If they attended 1 prenatal or
in-hospital class that talked about infant care and feeding, or read only
one book about breastfeeding, they would have more correct knowledge than
that ped has given those poor parents! To expect that a ped would be at
least knowledgeble enough about BF to abstain from giving those particular
pieces of poor advice - "top him off with a little formula after every nsg.
for the first few days", 5-min./side fdgs, 5% wt. loss + nl. NB nsg.
blisters ("peeling lips") = dehydration, the old "just pacifying" so stop
him from nsg. story, (and probably the old "looks a little jaundiced so off
for some tests" too, though since I haven't seen this baby I could well be
wrong on that one) - just doesn't seem like too much to ask.

Also feeling a bit riled about the comments (was it from Andrew? I think so)
about us IBCLC's and our "professional" (quotes his) careers and our
"know-it-all-ish attitudes". I won't even go there - I'm confident that
others will say it better - but I do feel compelled to point out that if an
LC were to take such a tone about peds, we would be jumped on like a duck on
a June bug about taking an adversarial tone vs. mutual respect, the need to
work together, blah, blah, blah...

Wow, 'scuse me, just had to let off a little steam there! But why, why, why
does this happen so often?

Feeling better now, Cathy Bargar in Ithaca NY, who needs to stop playing
lactnet and get busy wrapping presents...