Hi all!! I generally just lurk on Lactnet, gleaning  much technical
breastfeeding info, soaking it up, and loving it (we'll never know how many
people truly benefit from the discussions held here). However.... I feel
compelled to agree with Kathy D.'s post regarding patients not being advocates
for their own health and medical care! This issue really burns me up. Women,
especially tend to be "obedient" when given hospital rules to follow. One day
a new mother (still in the hosp), called me crying, because the "newly
remodeled, to be family centered" hospital advertises that rooming in is
encouraged. Well, that is only during daytime hours. This mom was trying to
overcome the normal BF problems experienced with the first baby, by rooming in
24 hrs and demand feed with this one. Of course the nurses took the baby away
that evening, and she was wiped out, not knowing what to do, and too
vulnerable to argue. All I could do was remind her  that the baby was HER
daughter, not the hospital's, and that she was a consumer. Would she let the
sales clerk ar Wal-Mart push her around? It eventually took a call to the DR.
to get baby back, but why does she have to fight a battle over something so
basic. By the way, this hosp still sends free cases of ABM home with everyone
(so I'm told).

As far as the author of BWG feeling disapproval from society for
bottle-feeding in public...I don't know where she is from, but in my little
corner of the world, it is directly the opposite. I bottle-fed by oldest
daughter, and was accepted everywhere. In fact, no one even questioned our
feeding method. It seemed NORMAL (gosh, that is so sick to me now, and I will
be trying to make it up to her the rest of her life)! But with my second
daughter, I felt like the outsider in my choice to breastfeed. I was the
unusual one, the one who was different. With the third, I didn't care anymore,
although I was more informed and armed in the support of La Leche League
friends (the first time I actually breastfed in the company of others doing
the same). I constantly strive to show my children and all around me, that WE
are feeding normally (of course without bashing the others, because as someone
pointed out, we have no idea how that mom came to making that choice).

Sorry so long..I've been wanting to breathe the thin air on the soap box!!
I'll go back to lurking now. Thanks for the ear!!

Jean Lewis, LLL Leader, and interested lurker in Newton, Iowa, where we are
preparing to go out, first time out for dinner ALONE in at least a year!