Written by: S&J Sheperd <[log in to unmask]> > One of my PP patients told me there is daycare at the school she goes to and > that she will get a call to her classroom when her baby needs to > breastfeed. I think that is really great! Is this common, or is she in a > really unusual program? I am guessing this is uncommon. Just a pet peeve ... notice I changed it from *daycare* to *childcare*? We take care of children not days. I also changed *teen moms* to be *teen parents*. :-) I work for my local school district at the high school. I am a child care provider for teen moms and dads, model appropriate parenting behavior, am a breastfeeding educator and advocate, confidante, referee, and chief bottle washer. (Although washing fewer and fewer bottles all the time!) In the county where I live, fairly rural, the major high schools do provide child care for the teen parents. In the high school that I graduated from, affluent bedroom community of Portland Oregon, there isn't a childcare program. The families can afford to take care of the *problem* in some other ways. Please find out if your community has this type of program. Support it. In doing so, you are NOT promoting teen pregnancy. Volunteer to teach the teen parents, health classes, life choices classes about breastfeeding. Every single teen mom who has had a baby since Noah (my breastfed toddler) and I have started working there, has breastfed. Some appear to be in it for the l-o-n-g haul. Some breastfeed for the 6 weeks that they are out of school post partum. I educate them. I encourage them to start. I encourage them to continue. I meet them where they are at (THANKS LACTNET for showing me how important this is!!) and help them with weaning when they really want to. Every single teen parent that has a bottle fed baby has at some time or another expressed a regret about not breastfeeding or not keeping up with it or wished their child was breastfed now. Hopefully when these parents will go on to have other children (when they are really prepared in life for it) they will be breastfed. -- Monique Noah Reilly Schaefers 6/18/97 [log in to unmask]