> If you are comfortable sharing with us, is there a reason you have decided
> *not* to go for IBCLC?  I am curious to know how the IBCLC exam is
> perceived, by those who don't have it, but clearly have a demonstrated
> interest in breastfeeding promotion and management.


---Elizabeth, although I am not Nicki, I feel the need to answer your 
question for myself :-) I am a longterm (over 10 yrs) LLL-leader and have 
worked on many publications in Dutch, including the Womanly Art and the 
Breastfeeding Answer Book. In all those years people told me: taking the 
exam would be peanuts for you.........and if I didn't respond, the nex 
remark would be: so you would finally be a réal LC.
Well. That's what it is to me: I feel real already :-)

I don't know how it is in other countries, but in the Netherlands the LC is 
not a "real" (official registered medical) profession, it is seen as 
"alternative treatment", like homeopathy for instance. Nevertheless most 
LC's come from a medical background, i.e. nurses, midwives etc. I am not 
always enthousiastic about their counselling skills, but besides that I see 
and feel that LC's medicalize something that should be normal. If you have A 
Problem, you go to an LC. If you breastfeed, or are pregnant and want to 
breastfeed, you go to an LC. Eeeeeeeh........breastfeeding and problems are 
not in the same sentence to me :-)

I strongly believe in the connecting power of women in the same episode of 
their lives: mother-to-mother-support. I am not a great believer in HCP's 
telling mothers what to do. What is, unfortunately, what I often see in 
LC's. Here. I hope it's better elsewhere.

Lydia, LLL, Netherlands
~~~ The art of medicine consists in amusing the patient while nature cures 
the disease. - Voltaire~~

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