Phyllis,

Your wrote, "We are that someone
to let them know it isn't their fault that the baby doesn't know how to
latch on.  Or it isn't their fault that their milk is not coming in as
nature meant for it to.  They do need our help & knowledge."

I agree that some mothers need assistance, just as some mothers at birth need
asistance.  I agree with you that knowledge is empowerment.  Where I disagree
is with the belief that because we have interventionist births we therefore
have to intervene in breastfeeding.  Interventions effect babies differently
and babies still are able to latch themselves onto a breast.  Sucking, going
to the breast, is an instinct that may be muted at birth by interventions but
is still a powerful drive.  Babies know what to do and believing that they
don't encourages interventions.  This means to me  that breastfeeding
advocates need to educate mothers about how birth can effect breastfeeding.
Avoid those interventions and you have a baby who "knows" what to do.

Actually, I don't see too many mothers whose milk doesn't come in.  But then
I am not a hospital-based LC.  Is this a new problem or an old problem?  Is
it because so many women are pumping in the early days that they assume that
because they only get drops of milk that they have no milk?  I call that a
problem that is easily resolved, throw out the pump.  Baby should be at the
breast anyway, even if it seemingly can't latch-on.  Baby needs that
skin-to-skin contact.  In that first week instead of assuming the mother has
no or little milk, we need to assume that the liklihood of that is minimal.

One of the things that seems to happen medically, not just in childbirth and
breastfeeding is that the "worst case" scenerio is in everyone's mind.  Which
often means that everyone assumes the worst and intervenes.  Those
interventions cause more problems.  Certainly there are cases that are your
worst case scenerio.  This is where I believe an LC's skill is important and
that is knowing the difference between normal and abnormal.

I don't think my job as a lactation consultant is to act as a peer to the
mother.  There are peer counselors who do that job or a mother's friends and
family.  I just don't think the mothers I have seen look at me as a
peer--maybe its my age......
Valerie W. McClain, IBCLC

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