Ok, here's my case(s) of the month:

I am working with two moms-one has a 36 week premie, now 3 weeks old, with
birth wt. 5-12, loss to 5-1, now up to 5-4 this week. Some REALLY helpful
(g-r-r-r-r) nurses bottlefed this kiddo, and she stopped nursing, with the
usual nipple preference behaviour. Mom is syringe feeding/pumping, and doing
well, tho tiring of it. She is not pushing the nursing, but doing lots of
kangaroo cuddling, etc. at this point. Baby is gaining, tho slowly-she looks
ok, and ped agrees to keep this up.

Second, and more difficult, is a term kiddo of difficult delivery with vacuum
extraction who from the first had this problem. When tried at breast (with my
help), baby acts like a nipple pref. baby-screams, fights, etc. I noted that
she did NOT like her head held at ALL, even behind the neck, and fussed when
you turned her head, esp. to the right. She also had a bit of a grimace at
rest, as tho she were not comfortable. (To a neonatal nurse like me, this
spells "sick", but at this point all tests are normal.) Her suck was more of
a bite at first, with very tight jaw, and just fair tongue coordination. I
did some muscle massage (taught to me by a speech path.). Now, four days
later, baby has only latched and really nursed a couple of times, and
consistently refuses. Mom/family do well at pumping and syringe feeding. I
suggested a try at cup feeding also. To make matters worse, this mom was
pretty tentative, and was getting discouraged. We shored her up well today,
then the MD came in and blew her out of the water! The MD and I then had a
HEATED discussion (we're friends). What a day......Any suggestions for the
weary LC today????
Thanks-it's SO nice to have you guys to talk to!!

Denise, searching for a latch