Regarding the eduction of health professionals, Wellstart in San Diego is
doing a good job of training health professionals worldwide to go back to
their educational institutions and change the curriculum and training to
include breastfeeding. However, education is not the total and perhaps not
the most important answer to change.  Making breastfeeding the norm will
make a significant difference. When physicians can begin saying not that
babies are smarter when they breastfeed, but that with formula they have a
decreased IQ. Or, with formula feeding, mothers will have an increase in
premenopausal breast cancer. Then, they cannot say that formula is 0K.
Formula will be like smoking, you can do it but there will be risks. That
may not be the best example, but you get the drift.

Also, Carol Bryant's work with teenagers in identifying barriers to
breastfeeding, I think, has implications in working with health
professionals.  We have our own personal barriers that we bring to our
professional work. A pediatrician must know of the advantages of
breastfeeding and to formula feed, must have some internal barriers.  So, I
continue to preach, that before we educate health professionals we must get
to their emotional issues.  If we don't, all the education in the world
will not change their attitudes and behaviors.
Carol L'Esperance, MSN, IBCLC