Brace yourselves: I feel a soapbox coming. I am very ambivalent on the issue, since I feel very strongly about the medicalization of birth and deplore it when a hospital feels that it "owns" the baby. ON THE OTHER HAND, as an LC, I agree with everyone on the critical importance of establishing bfing and bonding in the first hours and days. There is no question on that. I think that we have to work on a golden mean, so moms can both feel enough "at home" so that they can relax and start producing milk, AND get in enough nursing to start producing milk. I try to talk to the dads to arouse their instincts to "protect" mate and infant from visitors, but I'm not always successful with the population I work with. It's the moms who have to be convinced that the new baby is more important than the well-wishers, and I often find it a lost cause, along with the rest of you. Ah, the tightrope is slippery! Judy Knopf