Re: home visits + office visits

[Guest guest]

I also limit my practice to home visits. My general rule is that I

will travel up to a 30 minute drive, but no farther. If the mom lives

farther away than that, I refer her to an LC more local to her.

Sometimes I find it difficult to find someone for her. In that case,

I refer her to the ILCA website LC locator.

In response to Leigh Ann who mentioned how helpful it can be to see

the mom's breastfeeding environment (ie - not always the " perfect "

chair, bed, pillows), I agree. I like to help her to make the most of

what she has in her home.

I learned this valuable lesson about being aware of mom's physical

space with a client many years ago. We had talked several times over

the phone. I noticed that she seemed very harried, rushed,

high-strung. I made several suggestions to her to see if she could

work out the difficulties without having to have me to a visit. But

after a couple of calls, she asked me to come.

When I walked in the door, the harried, rushed, etc . . . made so much

sense. In her living room (she was nursing on the couch) was a pen

that took up almost the whole room. There were 3 or 4 ferrets living

there. There were a couple of cats wandering around, 2 dogs barking

in the backyard, and several visitors coming in and out of the house.

And dad was back at work. Poor mom!

Just taking her to a quiet room away from the chaos made a HUGE

difference in her ability to get the baby latched on. I don't think I

ever would have thought to ask her how many ferrets etc were living in

the room where she was nursing!

L.

>

> i meant to also say that we have a specific service area, and we

occasionally offer to drive beyond that service area, but we require

payment for transit time (equal to the hourly rate of consultation time).

>

>

> .

>