dear all,

i feel that chris' original post was not out of line, as it seemed much the
same as many others i have read on here. i also agree that we do not wish to
be perceived as being the lunatic fringe. but we cannot support extreme
censorship of ourselves in order to further our goal of being "granted
legitimacy" by the very areas of society that we wish to change!

and, although i greatly enjoy meeting lactation-friendly physicians via this
group, and feel tremendously happy that they are so interested in this field,
i, too, often feel very discouraged about "doctors" (or, hcps) in general
,when faced with my real-life experiences. and it is not only a question of
the age of the doctor or when they received their training. try as i might,
the family practitioner that our family sees, is not swayed by my gentle
encouragements to be more supportive of lactation issues. this is a group of
family practitioners, of which mine happens to be younger than i, and only
out of school a few years. i feel that it is important for anyone whose
practice includes mothers and new babies, much less who delivers babies as
well, to be up on all this info. does anyone know if the professional group
for family practitioners has official guidelines about lactation?

i particularly like katherine's analogy about tobacco and second-hand smoke,
and how for years the people concerned about this were perceived as flakes
and weirdos, and now of course, many of those critics have seen the light.

carol brussel