Thank you Laurie Wheeler for pointing out key distinctions between the United States and other breastfeeding societies. I just had a wonderful phone consult that made my day yesterday about a mother who needed reinforcement for "natural weaning" as she called it who was one of the few women, maybe one in one hundred that I see, who had actually managed to get through the breastfeeding experience in what I would call a baby-led feeding process! My typical ratio of clients is about 50 mothers and babies who are out of sync in terms the feeding process for every one who might qualify for the more typical situation seen in Australia and Sweden. Thank you Rachel Myr for discussing baby watching. This is absolutely crucial for all of us and often in our hospitals at least here in Manhattan, IBCLCs are not provided enough time to baby watch. When I hear complaints from my clients, in depth probing illustrates to me that the IBCLC was dealing with a huge overload of patients and had to develop coping strategies and triage systems. The complaints almost always result from the fact that the in hospital staff are simply are not given enough time for baby watching. I still remember listening to a talk at an ABM meeting where they were discussing the time allotment for consultations and wondering how you could possibly observe the full picture in that amount of time. In countries like Norway, I think the baby scale is more properly used judiciously for breastfeeding problems that require "tertiary care", whereas at this point in Manhattan at least it has become necessary to use the scale much more frequently for breastfeeding problems that require secondary care. I consider La Leche League and breastfeeding support groups as dealing with the far more common problems that require primary care. I do not consider IBCLCs to be primary care practitioners, but the second tier response to problems. If other support systems are in place and problems are minimal, we should not be necessary. I think the best users of the scale would probably be those who are most critical of the scale because they would never allow themselves to get sloppy in theri observational techniques. Perhaps this more than any other is the danger in the scale. You MUST have great observational skills and keep them up. This is why I'm actually happy that I spent a lot of time baby watching before beginning to use it and constantly challenge myself to make sure I am not slipping in my baby watching skills. On the other hand, practitioners who don't have the time or don't make the time if they have the possibility of doing so, may still be dispensing generalized advice that misses the nuances of the mother-baby pair. Best regards, Susan Burger PS. Let me make it clear again - I don't see why most of us can spot an oversupply situation 90% of the time without a scale. *********************************************** 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(R) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html