Saturday 1 March 2014

Valuing mothers - a breastfeeding counsellor's perspective

Here is another picture I found on Pinterest (yes I know, I often refer to Pinterest! It's probably my preferred social network). I hope you can zoom in and actually read it! If not you can see it here.




I think this short text is absolutely brilliant. It illustrates perfectly one of the core principles of counselling, what American psychologist Carl Rogers called Positive Regard or, in lay terms, to value, respect, care for.

It's something essentially important for a breastfeeding counsellor and the dramatic fact of our profession... *holds the back of her hand to her forehead, Shakespeare-like* ... is that, because we are passionate about breastfeeding, others sometimes think that we only value breastfeeding when, actually, we value whatever a mother does for her baby because we value The Mother first.

It is possible to be passionate about breastfeeding and care deeply for a formula feeding mother! And vice versa : it is possible to deeply value a formula feeding mother and be passionate about breastfeeding!

Anne x