So far the coverage has been disappointing.  I suspect there are several
reasons for this.

1.  The media's reliance on information generated by public relations
people - that's usually how overworked producers find some of the guests
for their shows.  Dr. N is on a book tour, so her publisher's PR people
are trying to get the word out.
2.  A lack of understanding about who the true experts on breastfeeding
are - media folk don't realize that physicians are lucky to get an hour
about lactation in med school, and even the med schools that have
students or residents round with IBCLCs only give them a week to 4 weeks
in the lactation rotation.  Not very much time to even learn the
basics.  We IBCLCs have to get the word out that we are the experts, and
that your typical pediatrician is usually coming from their own
experience as their major source of info (there is real research to
demonstrate this) and pediatric practice is not set up to facilitate
successful breastfeeding with its relatively low pay and long hours with
lots of  "on-call" time.  The Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine needs to
get the word out that they are the physicians with expertise on
breastfeeding, so that these busy producers and writers can find someone
easily who knows what they are talking about.
3.  We've all been through the guilt vs regret issue a zillion times, so
I'll keep it short.  Mothering is hard.  We are not here to judge
mother's decisions, just to educate them and assist them to meet their
goals with good information and practical strategies for solving
problems.   We really need to make this clear whenever we promote
breastfeeding, that we are not criticizing those who did not have the
knowlege or resources to continue.

Catherine Watson Genna, IBCLC  NYC

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

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]

The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html