For a long time it has been a source of frustration for me that nurslings are not welcomed at many  breastfeeding conferences.
On a personal level, it meant that that I had to delay - for years - attending the workshops required in order to fulfill the prerequisite requirements for taking the IBCLC exam. Knowing that none of my children would have been happy away from me I could not have concentrated on the speakers under those circumstances. While my children were accustomed from birth to attending other workshops with me and therefore knew how to behave appropriately, I would also have been fully prepared to remove them if their needs could not have been met without disturbing the other participants. Alas, we were never given the chance to prove that such things were possible at "professional" as well as at other conferences.
On a professional level, I find it disturbing that so many breastfeeding conferences are not "Baby Friendly." How can *we* support the right of mothers to breastfeed when *we* deny them the presence of their babies? Having witnessed the ultimate in oxymoronship, the sight of a breastfeeding conference participant pumping her breasts for the baby she left behind, I must seriously question the male model which decrees that family and business affairs cannot mix. The idea that mothers must be separated from their babies if they are to do anything of a serious nature - like listen, think or talk - is ridiculous. We all know that from the moment her child is born, a woman develops eyes in the back of her head, two extra pairs of hands and the ability to do at least three things at once! Let us give her the chance to use these gifts.

Norma Ritter, IBCLC, LLLL                         "If not now, when? If not us, who?"
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