I'm back home after a great course on research ethics, including an entire
day of lectures by one of the drafters of the first Helsinki Declaration by
the World Medical Association on research involving human subjects.  Wow.

I still have about 8 digests to go before I am caught up - have read 22 this
afternoon/evening and will save the others for tomorrow, I think, but I want
to sendt this post now.

First - thank you to everyone who sent calming messages to the list, and
nice messages to us listmothers as we tried to soothe the troubled waters.

Next - there are many, many practices that impinge on breastfeeding, and
most of them we probably aren't even aware of.  We know that epidurals and
c-sections impact on breastfeeding, as do supplementation, especially by
bottle, and mother-baby separation.

It is our duty as supporters for mothers, to know about these things.

Routine supplementation has no defensible basis.  Epidurals are given for
reasons, however much we may doubt their necessity in many cases.
C-sections are done for a plethora of reasons, some much better than others.
Mothers and babies get separated, sometimes by necessity and sometimes
because of poor routines.  If the breastfeeding is to survive, we need to
work to avoid routines that are injurious to BF, but we also need to know
how to help after the fact.  For example, not all women are interested in
having a drug-free, spontaneous vaginal birth, and not all who are
interested, are able to do so.  They have as much right to get help with BF
as anyone else does.  Sometimes mothers make choices we would not have made,
and those choices affect BF.  They still have a right to get help with BF,
IMO.  When giving info before the fact, one can mention all the things we
know of that affect BF negatively, and mention how we try to offset the
negative effects as well.  If we don't know whether something affects BF for
sure, or how, we can inform mothers of that too, and we can tell them how
they can get help if they are having trouble BF.

My own personal bias is that I prefer it when people have thought through
and reflected beforehand on what they are choosing in childbirth.  I
recognize that not everyone has that preference and I try to accept it, but
it ain't easy, folks!  The bottom line is that when someone seeks help, we
meet them where they are and go from there.  We use our best judgment for
how to bring up the subject of choices they made that are making it harder
for them now, and if BF is being affected by things beyond mother's control,
we try to get that across, too.  What is most urgent in situations where
there is a BF problem, is fixing the problem, not finding out where to send
the 'blame'.

When research is published showing how something affects the start of BF, we
will of course want to discuss it on Lactnet.  Even if the something is male
infant circumcision (there! I said it!).  We will be able to discuss this
research without letting our strong feelings get in the way of the
discussion, because we have an obligation to know these things, in order to
help mothers and babies breastfeed.  The emotionally laden discussions about
the question of male infant circumcision itself do absolutely nothing toward
furthering our knowledge of how to help mothers and babies with BF.

Rachel Myr
*SO* glad I only have to help run a list about BF, and not about the pros
and cons about male infant circumcision, in Kristiansand, Norway

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

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]

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