I did not attend the ILCA Conference b/c my little guy is too young to leave and if I take him, I take my dh, and then the other kids. That is what we did last year to go to the LLLI Conference.  It was very expensive and this year we are taking a family vacation instead. But, I am a member of ILCA and am the Vice-President of our local affiliate.

I read every post on this topic before I was ready to post. Like Barbara, I do not see many easy clients and I do often find myself using tools to solve problems that are often caused by birth injury or assault. IMO, these are very tricky to overcome, b/c of the complexities of emotions surrounding such situations. I often have to use tools before I can get a mom to try CST or a chiropractor, when I'd usually like to just get the baby bodywork right away. I agree that we need to know how equipment works and there are things I don't know enough about that I want to learn more about.

But, I also know that big money is spent on advertising because it does exactly what it is meant to do. The more money a company has, the more likely that their advertising will be effective, b/c they will have spent money on test-marketing as well. If the goal is to learn about equipment, then either every compnay should be able to come and demonstrate free of financial implications or someone who is not a company rep should learn about the products and educate the rest of us, much like the horse products mentioned by Teresa.

I guess the question I would have is this--how can we imagine ourselves to be so superior to the physicians who are so heavily influenced by the drug company reps? I once worked with a family in which the dad was a drug rep. He told me he didn't trust anything the doctor told him about meds, including AIM, b/c he knew that docs get all of their "education" about these products from people like him whose job it is to sell the products. The fact is that it is human nature to trust a company more when you have a face and a name associated with it than when you don't. We are not immune and if we were, the pump companies wouldn't talk to us.

I also want to point out that AIM marketing was once far more limited to the physicians. Now, we complain adamantly about the marketing of AIM to the consumer, but just look at the very heavy marketing of pumps, bottles and nipples to the consumer.

I think that for us to worry that this dialogue will detract from future conferences or from a more meaningful discussion about workshops is flawed. We need to have this conversation, b/c we clearly do not understand the power of marketing. What is implied is often far more important than what is said--and that is intentional. Before I had children and until my second child was born, I worked in advertising. I did design for all forms of media and I also wrote copy. Good copywriters can communicate at many levels at the same time. We are also trained to be consumers and are are highly receptive to visual and tactile stimuli, and objects in our hands are more appealing than a few spoken or written words. There is no way we are not influenced by advertisers at a conference.

We cannot silence this dialogue because it is about "us" this time, instead of "them". Too often, we silence discourse by naming it "bashing" or otherwise deeming it threatening. We are the gatekeepers and if we begin down a slippery slope toward financial dependency, we will never come back. Hearing about the content of the conference is certainly important and interesting. But, I can get good information from a lot of sources--I don't really want to have to look beyond my own professional organization for validation of my professional integrity.
Jennifer Tow, IBCLC, CT, USA

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