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Lactation Information and Discussion <[log in to unmask]>
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Fri, 2 Aug 2002 22:44:55 EDT
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I've been following the debate about the ILCA Avent and Playtex booths, which
has sort of broken off into a general discussion about equipment and
breastfeeding aids.  I usually just lurk on these boards but feel compelled
to throw in an opinion (or two).

Our profession is built around debunking the notion that breastfeeding is
strictly natural and reinforcing the notion that it is a learned behavior for
both mother and baby.  We offer assessment skills to help tease out which
areas need strengthening and fine-tuning (better latch, low supply, etc.)  We
(I hope) do not merely suggest that climbing into bed with the baby and
nursing around the clock will solve all problems.  It seems paradoxical to me
to suggest, then, that "equipment" and breastfeeding aids have subtly
undermined breastfeeding.  Are we forgetting that for years and years, before
these products were available,  babies were fed by spoon, by soaked rag, by
other breasts, and sometimes, alas, not fed enough at all?  In a world where
I could be in big trouble for suggesting that someone finish a feed by
calling their lactating sister into the room, you better believe I'm grateful
for the supplemental nursing system, or the double electric pump.  I see
equipment as an advancement, an area in which technology has NOT gone awry,
and I find it unrealistic and a little too romanticized to think that, for
example, hand expression is always best simply because it involves a warm,
fleshy, nurturing hand and does not need to be plugged in.  Or that the mere
existence of equipment chips away at a woman's confidence.  Women do focus on
pumping, but to me that is a separate issue, which involves leftover notions
from the bottle-feeding era ("I want someone else to be able to feed the
baby") and a realistic attempt to adjust to the world we (all) live in, which
emphasizes independence and makes baby-toting just plain awkward most of the
time.

Just some thoughts...

Heather Kelly, MA, I hope IBCLC

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