This week received MCN Magazine, American Journal of Maternal/Child
Nursing,Nov.-Dec. 95 issue.  It has a special 3 part feeding section, and I am
quite sure a lot of Lactnetters will be interested in reading this.
Part one-A Structured Intervention Improves Breastfeeding Success for Ill or
Pretierm Infants, By Ellyn Bell, Janet Geyer, Louise Jones all RNs University of
Iowa, Iowa City.
This article encourages support for pumping kangaroo care, and is a very helpful
guideline for increasing breastfeeding duration in the NICU.  I plan to share
this one with the nurse practitioners and neonatologists in our NICU, ( which by
the way has a 100% breastfeeding rate at this time)

Part Two-When Women Decide Not to Breastfeed, by Eileen Gigliotti,RN,City
University of New York.  She talks about the danger of nurses damaging the self
esteem of women who have chosen to bottlefeed.  There is plenty in the article
to comment on,  One quote said"However, when one considers the health risks of a
stressful enviromnent, it becomes clear that breastfeeding may confer healthful
benefits only if done in a spirit of enjoyment by both mother and baby, rather
than grudgingly out of a notion of duty.  If our value is not breastfeeding for
its own sake, but rather for the worth in fostering healthy families then
breastfeeding becomes only one means to this end."

Part three; A DEVELOPMENTAL  APPROACH TO WEANING, by Lydia Furman, MD,
Cleveland, Ohio, a pediatrician.

This is the one that I disagreed with the most. She is making the point that
babies will give cues when they are ready to wean.  She never mentions the AAP
recommendation that babies will benefit from breastfeeding a year.  She makes it
sound like mothers encourage babies to nurse when they no longer want to.  In my
19 years working with nursing moms, I have not been able to find babies who will
nurse if they no longer want to. She says that first weaning signals may come as
early as 5 or 6 months, when baby no longer linger at the breast, or begins to
bite,etc.
She indicates that the mothers enjoyment of nursing keeps the mother wanting to
breastfeed much longer than the child wants to do so.  If you get a chance read
this one. She is saying that the baby weans the mother, not the other way
around, and this is not news especially for those with a LLL background, but the
way she leaves out health benefits, psychological importance to the baby, health
benefits, is a unbelievable to me.

I plan to write a letter to MCN.I think they expect comments, because they had a
little response box saying I agree with this article or I don't agree, to be
mailed back about article 2 to Editor,MCN 555 West 57th Street, New York, NY,
10019.

Ann Calandro, RNC,IBCLC
Waxhaw, NC