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Subject:
From:
Jennifer Tow <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Lactation Information and Discussion <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Tue, 22 Aug 2000 18:18:49 EDT
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In a message dated 7/27/00 1:10:43 AM, [log in to unmask] writes:

<< << The question was: "What's wrong with this?"
> There was no other LLLL in the cohort (all at the LLLI Conference!)
and the
 >others sitting the exam gasped and murmured unfriendly things >>

So the correct answer to the question would be... *you* are what's
wrong?
I'd love to know what the success rate among the candidates who were
gasping and looking horrified was. Seems to me it should be an automatic
failure. How are they supposed to *help* mothers BF?>>

I know this is an old thread, but this, to me, is indicative of many
attitudes toward bf among so-called experts, which I find alarming. Several
years ago, I was asked to give an in-service to a group of community health
outreach workers on the role of social service organizations in promoting bf.
They are part of a program which is well-funded, highly publicized and very
politically-correct, but extremely mainstream, medicalized and IMO
ineffective.
    I noticed they had an enormous stack of the LLL brochure entitled
"Nursing Two, Is it For You?" on tandem nursing. I held up a copy at one
point and asked  if they saw many mothers who were tandem-nursing. One worker
responded (as I expected) that they did actually have quite a few clients who
nursed twins. I replied that this brochure was not meant for mothers of
twins, but rather for mothers tandem-nursing 2 children of different ages.
The worker, perplexed, looked at me and said "What do you mean?"  (As both
our programs had the same population base, I knew for certain that some of
their clients tandem-nursed.) I explained about continuing to nurse
throughout a pregnancy and beyond w/ an older baby or toddler and she turned
to me, realization dawning, and said "That's disgusting!" I asked her "Is
that what you say to your clients who tandem-nurse"? She said that none of
her clients "would do such a thing!" I told the workers that they did indeed
have clients who had in the past, were currently or were planning to tandem
nurse. I told her that I had recently weaned my older child and gave this as
an example of how assumptions can be destructive to honesty and trust--key to
success in their jobs.
    Much of my presentation from then on was about what is biologically
normal and the obligation of the worker to support that which is both normal
and desirable--which is bf. I actually did get asked back to do another
presentation about bf "management", but I am doubtful that that particular
woman ever changed her mind or refrained from pushing her own opinion.
Jennifer Tow, IBCLC, CT, USA

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