Hello, everyone. First I want to say that Lactnet has been a valuable resourse for me as a new IBCLC. I just passed the exam in 2002 and I work as a staff RN on a Mother/Baby unit in a moderate sized city in "Middle America". I have always been an advocate of Women and Childrens issues having worked in Pediatrics and Maternal newborn for 25 yrs. Three Years ago I became a CLC when our hospital decided to send 4 staff RN's to a 40 hr workshop. Perhaps the hospital just wanted to be able to say' "oh, yes, we have counselors on staff.", because we have run into many roadblocks for change in our facility. Because there is not much of a staff turnover the "powers to be" have an attitude of "We've always done it that way". I have had to reset my goals for change regarding breastfeeding policies by trying to make changes where it counts, especially with no budget or separate lactation service. I have concentrated on early latch on, discouraging suppliments, staff education and maternal support. All this while working night shift! At least I have the night shift taking out the babies out on demand instead of every 4 hrs and there has been some slow change in attitudes of the staff regarding supplimenting. Physician support is limited and I seem to get better response from the OB/GYN's than the Peds. The Peds would like to think they are pro breastfeeding but order suppliments as soon as a mother says the baby nurses all the time! Right now I have taken up the project of redoing our breastfeeding policy. It states a baby may not nurse if a mother has a fever of 101. I want to eliminate that from the policy. I have taken a survey of area hospitals and 6 out of 10 do not separate mom and baby for fever. How else can I present this to the peds since they are such a cautious group? I thought about showing the list of diseases compatable with breastfeeding and mentioning that when a mom goes home she would'nt be separated from baby if she had a fever. This is only one of many changes needed. Suggestions anyone? Sorry this was so long. JG *********************************************** 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