I held a La Leche League Toddler meeting this morning, with ten nursing
mothers present.  I did not bring up the subject of the Chicago Hope story,
but the social time after our formal meeting was *buzzing* with it!  These are
not women who would have read Lactnet, or were likely to have known about the
episode before it aired.  Of course, they all recognized my co-Leader emeritus
:-)  Margie Forrest on the news bit after the show was over.  They were
pleased that there was atleast a small chance that any new mothers or pregnant
women watching the show would get a modicum of good information on how to know
if their baby was "getting enough".
  The general consensus was that all of the "issues" that the program seemed
to be trying to tackle (working and breastfeeding, nurturing vs. rules,
parenting, breastfeeding management) were convoluted and confused.   Nothing
at all was clarified by program's end by the grieving mother's last statement.
We all realized that n general, the end of the one hour show is the end of
that story line- just like in real life hospital situations, health
professionals do not usually know what happens to a patient after discharge,
unless the patient comes back to the hospital.

Lisa Jones in Wellington, south Florida, USA- and a giant fan of "ER" more so
now than ever.