title: High tech-soft touch: breastfeeding issues.
abstract: Hospital practices and staff interactions need to be reviewed carefully in each institution and community to examine the direct or indirect effects on human lactation and breastfeeding. With the increased incidence of breastfeeding and the continued promotion by the Surgeon General and the American Academy of Pediatrics, it is imperative that health care professionals examine the attitudes that affect their behavior as they interact with their patients about lactation. The high-tech routines must be altered to facilitate the normal aspects of the breastfeeding process. A mother must be close to learn how to interact with and touch her new infant. The greatest challenge is not in changing the written policies nor the curtains or surroundings but in changing the attitudes and beliefs of the staff, so that human lactation and breastfeeding are treated as normal physiologic, psychological, and nurturing activities of mothers and infants.
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001291:Attitude of Health Personnel; D001942:Breast Feeding; D005260:Female; D006760:Hospitalization; D006801:Humans; D007227:Infant Nutritional Physiological Phenomena; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007774:Lactation / Q000502:physiology; D009034:Mother-Child Relations; D011247:Pregnancy