Cathy writes:

> Very rarely does it help a woman
>succeed with either breastfeeding or her other goals in life to approach the
>situation with an "oh my gosh, how can you even think of doing that to your
>baby and yourself?!" attitude.


Cathy, I am sure that all the posts which talked about the difficulties of
a mother returning early to work or to college acknowledged this. None of
us would express that attitude or even give a hint of it in our dealings
with the mother.

I still think it is *awful* for a mother of a 4 day old baby to have to sit
in a lecture hall all day, but if I was faced with a mother who asked me
how to make this work for her, I would help her, and do my best to let her
know just what she was letting herself in for, without being at all
negative about it...she would not think (I hope) I thought it was a
dreadful idea. But I wouldn't be able to say what a great idea....

But away from dealing with individual mothers, we can express our true
feelings here!

And they are that trying to breastfeed with these sorts of obstacles may be
a tribute to a mother's own determinatation,  but it is an indictment of
society which seems bent on making it as hard as possible to enjoy the bf
relationship for as long as mother and baby want it to last.

So I  *don't* welcome back-to-work programmes that 'allow' a 3 or 6-week
post-natal mother to express her milk while her baby is cared for miles
away by someone else, five full days a week. The only back-to-work
programme that I'd welcome  is one which was flexible enough, and paid
enough, to have the timing decided by the needs of the mother and baby.

But I don't breathe a word of this to mothers who ask me about going back
to work.

Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc Newcastle upon Tyne UK

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