Jeanette says:
"I recommend that we start out any intervention with these moms with a
question - what are your traditions and beliefs?  Listen respectfully,
never criticize or put-down, and make little effort to correct if it does
not cause problems with the breastfeeding."

Best advice ever - whether "cultural diversity" applies to someone from the
other side of the world, another skin color, or a different "lifestyle". I
learned long ago and try never to forget that just because someone has the
same color skin you do, or lives in the same county, or speaks the same
language, we do not necessarily share the same cultural background. Here in
my county, most of the rural population is white & English-speaking - but
there is a tremendous difference between the back-to-the earth hippies
living in the woods, the long-time local "clans" living among their junk-car
plantations, and the Cornell grad students, just to name a few I would
encounter on a daily basis. Their language, knowledge level, attitudes, and
traditions about BFing and child-raising are as diverse in some respects as
those between any one of them and the woman from South Africa or Thailand.

I never helped a single one of them by saying "What your mother told you is
all wrong"!

Cathy Bargar, RN, IBCLC Ithaca NY

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