I can't pick just one! I think they're all very important. ANyway, here is my list in order of what I think affected me the most.

Health professional influence e.g. MCHN, Paed
Family &/ friends ideals/advice/expectation
Lack of continuity of care
Conflicting advice after birth
Lack of availablility/affordability of support
Lack of education
Interventions at birth
Accessibility of artificial milk
Marketing of artificial milk

I probably should have put lack of education higher as I really didn't bother to educate myself about breastfeeding as much as I did about pregnancy and birth, I just assumed it would be easy because it's the natural thing to do. I also wasn't the only one amongst my friends who thought that. I know others who stopped breastfeeding because they had an unsettled 5 day old baby and just assumed they didn't have enough milk and that was the reason for the crying. One friend even told me that I too would give up bf just like she did once I had to be up at 3 am with a crying baby.

Which brings me to family/friends/society expectations. I found that in our society ff is seen as the norm by just about everyone and as soon as you have any trouble the advice is, "switch to formula". People think you're crazy to choose to persevere with bf despite having massive problems. Even a so-called LC told me that. There should be some sort of standard to make people have real qualifications to work as LCs, and not have just anyone do it.

Enough of my ranting. Good luck, Kelly. I hope you can make them see some sense!