I note with interest an article 'early introduction of oral feeding in preterm infants' by Simpson, C Schanler, r and Lau, C (2002) 110 (3) p517-522 what do others of you make of this in the light of all that has been said to date regarding nipple confusion and the early introduction of bottle teats? Authors claim early introduction of "oral feeds" gives the baby opportunity to "practice and enhance oral motor skills". they found no difference in oxygen desaturation and, bradycardia or weight gain between experimental and control group. but previous studies as far as I know have shown difference in the above between bottle and breast feeding babies. another problem I see is that there is no mention of what type of bottle teat was used. will we ever get to the place where human oral anatomy and physiology for infant feeding is understood clearly and considered in the making and use of bottle teats (I prefer to call the rubber/silicone/plastic/artificial ones teats not nipples although I can see there may be very little difference. thank you for your comments references thoughts and experiences on this one. Ruth ------------------------------------- Ruth Cantrill Griffith University NATHAN QLD 4111 Ph: 0438987261 Email: [log in to unmask] *********************************************** 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(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html