I am fascinated, amused, and saddened by the thought that hand expression is
considered unrealistic and too romanticized to be seriously considered by our
profession.  I am fascinated because it really surprises me that people
believe that.  I am amused because I think most of us that have used hand
expression would never call it romantic.  And I am saddened because I think
hand expression is not unrealistic.  In fact, it's about as real as you can
get when looking for a way to release some milk without a baby.

Interestingly, the modern dairy farmer milks his cows by hand prior to using
a milking machine.   In "The Seven Habits of Highly Successful Milking
Routines" from the University of Wisconsin at Madison, they found that
milking by hand before using a milking machine stimulated the letdown and
ultimately increased milk yields.  It was worth doing despite the extra time
it took.  Why this difference between the human hand  on milk production
versus the wonder of the mighty chrome and plastic machine?  Don't know.
Maybe these dairy farmers are just being romantic and trying to live in the
past. Maybe we should give them a good shot of realism.

I am not sure that Ashley Montague is considered relevant in this day and age
of technological innovation and recombinant DNA.   But during the years that
I was a breastfeeding mother, much of what he wrote in his book, "Touching"
helped me make sense of my experience as a breastfeeding mother.

A quote from his book seems relevant to this discussion:
"To shut off any one of the senses is to reduce the dimensions of our
reality, and to the extent that that occurs we lose touch with it..."

One might suspect that hand expression puts us in touch with reality because
we have a greater degree of skin-to-skin contact.

I find this whole issue on equipment rather telling, telling in that we have
entered an era where we no longer believe in the richness, warmth and
imperative nature of skin contact.  Where we are being indoctrinated into
believing that human milk is so diseased and dirty that we cannot suggest or
even whisper wet-nursing.  Where we  are being told to help moms be realistic
about their expectations of breastfeeding and motherhood.  But whose reality,
whose truth is it?  Valerie W. McClain, IBCLC







             ***********************************************
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