TO Marjorie and others who encounter uninformed professionals- First, some
incredible statements heard:

1. Situation: undiagnosed retained placenta with bleeding and cramping for 10
weeks treated with high-dose oral contraceptives which 'won't affect the
milk.'  Response after the mom lost her milk: "The (residents) had proper
philosophy, but their education was poor."

2. Situation: mom told to discontinue BF while on magnesium sulfate. LC
quietly put AAP's drug information on doc's private desk. Head doc angry with
LC's action and says of the other doc: "He wasn't wrong, he was just
medically incorrect."

NOW, a request for help from our MD and DO colleagues - HELP!  How do we LCs
properly react to such arrogant, incorrect, and potentially harmful
statements???  We'd like to be part of the solution instead of just mopping
up the situation and patching together what we can salvage of the BF
relationship and the mom's emotional self.  We LCs don't know everything that
docs have to know.  We DO know breastfeeding, and we know our limits and who
to call in for help.  We really believe in the team approach.

My client reports to MDs usually have 2-3 footnotes and often a copy of a
research article or pages copied from one of the lactation textbooks. I'm
seeing a general improvement in management from the docs in my town since I
moved here 6 years ago, and would like to think my informative letters have
helped.

Linda Smith, cautiously optomistic about professional education in lactation