Marie,
Sometimes health care professionals need to be reminded of the
impact their words and actions have on new parents.  In
inservices/classes for nursing staff I have often included role-playing
scenarios where someone plays a new mother and someone else plays the
health care professional.  We usually do a role play and then generate
discussion by asking what messages were given to this new mother/family
by what was said and/or done and what the implications could be.  If you
get people laughing by being entertaining it tends to relax them and
they are more likely to participate in an open discussion.  The same
type of thing can be incorporated into a written forum (like a
self-learning packet for staff).  Write some common scenarios about what
you see in your facility and write some questions about them
with multiple choice or fill in the blank answers about what the implied
messages were.  I guess some health care professionals are just
downright mean, but I prefer to think that there are more of them that
just need to be guided to look at the consequences of what they say and
do and will then change their behaviors!
Respectfully,
Edie Armstrong, Fairfax, Va.