In the utopia Elaine has faith in (must be a good week in the bible
belt) maybe an organization that exists solely to provide mother to
mother support for breastfeeding would not be needed, maybe..... if all
your aunts and sisters and mothers and in-laws and grandmothers and
neighbors and teachers and doctors and nurses and employers breastfed
normally then things would be different in the world and you wouldn't
feel isolated and insecure.  There may still be a place for the rare LC
in such a world, to handle the rare breastfeeding problems that occur
because of physiology instead of bad management or interference.

Sadly, in Maryland utopia seems very far away and LLL is very important
to this LC.   Professional help can only go so far, mother to mother
support really matters.

I can tell how much good I am going to achieve as an inhospital LC by
the degree of the mother's determination to breastfeed.  She may say:
I WILL breastfeed this baby (#1) or
I WANT TO breastfeed this baby (#2) or
I'm going to TRY to breastfeed this baby (#3).
These are all such loaded statements.  Once the baby is born (#3) is
very risky.  If this mother went to LLL meetings prenatally however,
I'll bet by the time the baby was born she would have more of that
determination that is so often mislabeled as fanaticism by those who
don't value breastfeeding.  Besides, LLL is so much fun.  Maybe in
Utopia LLL meetings will just be a celebration of the obvious and they
could be held once a year, like May Day.

--
Carla D'Anna, RN, IBCLC hospital based LC
from Maryland, just north of Washington, DC
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