Just an added note on stealth feeders - I had a baby with thrush teach me 
something interesting. He was a 10 week old who had been nursing 
wonderfully, with audible swallowing. The mother called me in the midst of 
his treatment for thrush in tears, saying that her baby had not eaten for 
days, because she could no longer hear him swallow at the breast. She was 
terrified that she was losing her milk supply due to his lack of feeding. 
When I looked in his mouth, I could see significant thrush deep in his 
throat. She fed him, and sure enough he didn't make a sound, and after the 
only swallow I heard, he pulled off and cried, but went back for more 
silent feeding. (Normal evaluations of post-feed contentment were useless 
because he was sick with a virus in addition to the thrush and also on 
medications giving him diarrhea, so he was fussy between feeds) The test 
weight showed that he had taken in 4 silent ounces, obviously learning a 
new technique to deal with his discomfort. I wonder how many babies who 
have experienced deep suctioning at birth, learn to eat silently, allowing 
milk to trickle down their throats rather then actively gulping it down. 
The scale can be an enormous comfort to the mother and assessment tool for 
the practioner, under these circmstances. Yes I can also look at output or 
overall weight gain, but the scale helps me refine my assessments.
Kathy Lilleskov RN IBCLC

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

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