> Why are we waiting 6 hours?  If it is important for the baby to go to
breast
> within the first hour of birth, isn't it just as important for the mother
as
> for the baby?  Then why don't we start expressing (if baby can't/won't
> nurse) within the first hour?

When my grandson was born prematurely, he was whisked off to the nursery
quite quickly after his arrival because he was having some breathing
difficulties. I immediately asked for a sterile container and had his mother
(my daughter-in-law) begin hand-expressing colostrum. As I told her "if he
wasn't so tiny, he'd be nursing right now." She got a surprising amount of
milk - I think it was about two ounces. We then went down to the nursery,
where we were told that they were concerned about hypoglycemia and wanted to
give him some formula. It was great to be able to whip out our little
container of freshly-expressed colostrum, which they gave to the baby
through a tube down to his stomach. He never had anything but his mother's
milk.

I absolutely agree with Jan, let's start mothers hand-expressing right away
if nursing isn't happening.

Teresa Pitman
Guelph, Ontario

             ***********************************************

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]

The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html