Re: the frequently-discussed issue of inducing "guilt" re: bfing/other
parenting issues, Susan wrote:
"I'm sorry to have brought
this emotional issue into this professional forum."
It isn't just an "emotional issue", as opposed to a professional one.
Certainly, the issue of guilt and "causing" it in women we work with can be
emotional; it's inevitable, because when we deal with parenting questions we
are going right to the soul of ourselves. We bring our professional
knowledge, but we also bring our selves, including the children we were and
the parents we are (or may someday be).
As professionals, the information and recommendations we give must be
research-based. We may be directed in our work by experience, but we need
to work within the existing & expanding professional body of knowledge.
That's what makes us professionals, and different from the lady on the bus
or in the supermarket who gives the new mother advice.
It is also part of our professional practice to use our counseling skills.
Working with parents professionally requires us to act in ways that will
facilitate a mother's own decision-making. We may guide her, we may present
ways for her to examine the issue and help her gain skills to think it
through, and we must support her and validate (I hate that word, but it's
what I mean here) HER, if not necessarily the choices she makes. This does
not "make" people feel guilty. It may make them confused, temporarily, as
they must then work through new information, but professional assistance
places the choices to be made squarely with the parents.
We don't know what is in any individual's heart or in the parts of her life
she doesn't choose to share with us. The decisions she makes for herself and
her baby are not ours to make. It is our ethical and very professional
responsibility to deal with every mother and father and baby with genuine
respect. Not fake, not lip-service, but the real thing.
Dealing with these issues around guilt and emotion are a big part of our
profession. If we can't do so mindfully, how are we any different from the
hcps we so frequently criticize for the dumb (read "anti-bfing") things they
tell new parents?
Cathy Bargar, RN, IBCLC Ithaca NY
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