With permission to post, a mother of a 5 week old infant came to my 
breastfeeding group this week looking for more help. Baby was born at 36 
weeks, vaginal delivery and kept in NICU for 2 weeks. Baby had been assisted 
for "nipple confusion" from a lactation assistant at WIC and was told to come 
in and talk to me for more help as she is not a WIC client and the LC was out 
of ideas. 

In talking to mom, baby was suctioned a lot before feeds and then fed by 
bottle as NICU staff told her baby could not go to breast because it would 
take too many calories, etc. She pumped while at hospital as she had no pump 
at home until baby went home and she obtained a PIS at a store nearby. Baby 
was fed by bottle at hospital, only gets supplements at home when mom 
cannot pump due to baby fussiness as she is alone. Of course in the mean 
time she did develop a mastitis that was treated and cured now.

In observing her, baby is very hypertonic and will not tolerate anything 
touching his mouth and does not root or open to fingertips. When we did get 
him calmed down by rocking and shooshing, he opened up for me but when I 
tried to evaluate him he screamed top of his lungs high pitched and had to be 
calmed again. After about 20 minutes he did finally accept my finger and no 
anomolies were found in his mouth but as soon as the pad of my finger hit the 
roof of his mouth he would spit it out and cry.

Mom has great let down and with baby calm and jsut laying in her arm mom 
was dripping milk and on occassion he would press his mouth to breast with no 
suck but did lick a time or two. If head was touched it would trigger problems 
and she basically had to jsut cradle him and allow him to find his way. He 
never latched but mom was much happier since he at least was not screaming.

His weight is fine as he does eat witht he bottles but does not like to either. 
Mom tried a shield, SNS, and we talked about finger feeding to put him back in 
control....what else can I do for this babe? Will finger feeding be a good 
transition or should I have her keep doing what we did until he decides to 
latch? I also talked to her about laying down with him and trying to feed when 
sleepy...thanks for the help.

Emily Lindsey, BSPsy, CLE
Private Practice
Merced, CA

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

Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html
Mail all commands to [log in to unmask]
To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or [log in to unmask])
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet or ([log in to unmask])
To reach list owners: [log in to unmask]