In a message dated 4/12/99 8:56:59 PM Eastern Daylight Time, Alicia Dermer
writes:

<< Obviously, there are physicians who, themselves, or their spouses,
breastfed very happily, optimally and successfully.  But, just like our
general society, they are few and far  between.  >>

I'd go farther -- I think that relative to others of similar education and
socio-economic level physicians and their spouses are *less* likely to have
breastfed their children. Many physicians have their children during the
years in which they are residents or fellows, when there is enormous pressure
to go back to full time work -- and full time of the most exaggerated kind --
within six weeks or even less after a birth (compare lawyers -- in the big,
hard-driving New York lawfirms it has become routine for women associates to
take 3-6 months of maternity leave, and if it's unpaid, well, they can afford
it and they do).

Physician fathers sometimes may have an even more extreme case of the feeling
that so many new fathers do have, that it is there responsibility to
alleviate their partner's perceived suffering, in childbirth and in its
immediate aftermath -- and "doing it for her" by telling her she "doesn't
have to do that" is one way to achieve that.  Plus in a milieu where none of
their teachers or colleagues is likely to bf (see paragraph above), they have
some social conditioning to believe that it just isn't that important.

I know a lot of physicians in their 30s and they are by far the
least-prone-to-bf segment of my acquaintance.  Does anyone else out there
know if there has been any kind of study of this population and its habits?
Leslie, does the 1995 JAMA article by Gary Freed that you mentioned talk
about this?  (I'm sorry to rely on the research kindness of strangers -- as a
lay bf type without institutional affiliation it is harder for me to get hold
of research quickly than I wish it were -- advice on this topic welcome too,
thanks.)

Because if not, I'd say that one of the things that could most influence how
the physicians of the coming years manage their bf patients might be how
their medical schools and residencies and fellowships manage them.

Med students and residents and recent attendings out there, any comments or
thoughts?

Elisheva Urbas
lay bf agitator in NYC

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