Dear Lactnetters! I have been asked to give a lecture at a conference for the Midwifes Assosiation of Finland. The subject is how to support mothers to breastfeed with supplementation ie. partial breastfeeding. I have been planning my lecture for a while and I would appreciate feedback and suggestions from this community . My target is to give information about partial breastfeeding and why mothers end up with supplementing, and also on how to breastfeed while supplementing and ways on how to do it. Most of the audience is likely to be hospital based midwives at delivery rooms and post partum wards where supplementation is still far too common. I would like to be able to affect the decision making of midwives at the hospital so that they would not supplement so freely. I would like to see also that if the supplementation at the hospital is needed, the mothers would go home with specific instructions on how to gradually stop supplementing when the milk comes in and how a mother may determine at home if the baby is getting enough milk and that adequate follow-up is received. In Finland all mothers and babies do get follow-up at local health care centers, but HCPs there are not too well educated about breastfeeding. I would cover up these things first and then tell about how to supplement while breastfeeding if it is needed and how to support mother. The recent discussion about bottles has been very helpful for me! Thank you all who have been writing about it! In Finland the majority of families who breastfeed partially choose to supplement with bottles so I would speak about things that need to be considered when choosing a method and paced bottlefeeding if bottles are used. In Finland the majority of women plan to breastfeed "according to the official nutritional recommendation" but end up supplementing in the first 6 weeks. According to a survey done in 2000-2001, as many as 79% of the newborns got supplements at the hospital. In 2005 a national survey about breastfeeding was done and 60% of 1 month old babies were exclusively breastfed, at 3 months only 34% and at 6 months 40% mothers had quit breastfeeding altogether. The main reasons in my opinion are the supplementation given at the hospital and the HCPs lack of knowledge on how to solve even basic breastfeeding difficulties during the firts weeks. The mothers don't get enough information about living with the breastfed baby antenatally, so they don't know what to expect. Then they get not so adequate information from HCPs and start giving bottles. Well, that would hopefully change at least a little since Imetyksen tuki (Breastfeding Support Association) got two different grants for the next years from Finlands Health and Social Ministry to develop antenatal education for the families and to develop peer support programs and education in Finland. The resources I have include Riordan: Breastfeeding and human lactation, Wilson-Clay & Hoover: Breastfeeding Atlas, Mochrbacher & Stock:Breastfeeding Answer Book and Newman: Latch. I also have internet access to Pediatrics and British Medical Journal etc. What I would need is your input and suggestions and especially more references! I would be very grateful for any input! I am a little bit nervous since this is my first lecture for HCPs and the audience is quite big... I have been speaking for HCPs before, but that has always been about our association and peer support, not breastfeeding itself. Sincerely, Pia Ruohotie, RN, breastfeeding counsellor and Breastfeeding educator, Imetyksen tuki ry from Helsinki, Finland, Europe *********************************************** 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 email list is powered by LISTSERV (R). There is only one LISTSERV. To learn more, visit: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html