Dear Cynthia

<<If a mother has the mental ability to keep track of the amount and timing
of
formula feeding that her baby needs, then why wouldn't she have the ability
to keep track of the frequency and nature of her baby's breastfeeding,
voiding and stooling? If her mental ability is such that others are planning
on bottle feeding the baby for her, then why couldn't they bring the baby to
her to breastfeed whenever it needed feeding and stay with her while she did
so?<<

It is exactly what is thinking the educationalist,  who works in the
institution where is this mother, and who asked me informations about the
subject.

<<If the mother is moderately mentally disabled then by definition she has
the
capacity to learn and no doubt has learned a great many things in her life
already. Why is she perceived as unable to learn to breastfeed?<<

This mother is disabled enough for not beeing able to live and manage
"alone", so she lives in an institution. In fact, she is not perceived to be
"unable to breastfeed". It is just that the staff of the institution has not
even had the idea of breastfeeding : for them, a baby is just formula fed,
that is the norm. And they think that this mother is not intelligent enough
to prepare correctly the formula, so another one would feed the baby.

This educationalist wanted to know if there was litterature or cases of
mentally disabled mothers breastfeeding, for having arguments to give to her
colleagues : at the next staff reunion, she want to advocate breastfeeding
for this mother.

<<Who are the "others" who want to bottle feed the baby? Professionals with
the specific training and experience to evaluate accurately this mother's
capacity or health professionals or family without such training?<<

The other members of the staff. Strictly absolutely no knowledge about
breastfeeding. The educationalist who asked me has breastfeed, and is very
convinced of the interest of breastfeeding, expecially for this mother :
nothing to prepare, a better relation with the baby, and so on. But she is
alone to have this point of view...<<

Kindly
Françoise
[log in to unmask]

             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html