Dear All: Karleen's mention of addiction brought up the issue of our terminology. (No offence intended Karleen - I enjoyed your post). Yes, it is very easy to think of baby's with a weak suck as "lazy" or a baby who won't switch over to breast alone after using the tube as "addicted to the tube or after using the bottle as "addicted to the bottle" or a baby who won't latch after a bottle as "nipple confused". However, I don't think that these easy terms that we all fall into really describe what is going on. Babies are smart. They want to eat and will figure out a way to do it if they can. I'm trying to think of different terms and wondering if the rest of you have ideas. Here's my thoughts: "Nipple confused" and/or "Addicted to the breast, bottle, finger, etc" really seems to be composing of one or more the following: * tongue retraction * tongue thrusting * mouth insufficiently opened * inadequate compression of the breast * flow confusion * stimuli confused (as in hardness, softness, compressibility of finger, nipples, breast) Help me out here - I'm finding those to be inelegant descriptions of my observations. I think "flow confused" can apply to the breast when we have women with under or oversupply - or perhaps more appropriately fast or slow MER which may or may not be related to supply. I had an interesting case recently where the woman had low supply, but an incredibly fast MER. The baby finished everything she had in 7 minutes flat - and then there was nothing left. He really needed more. Best, Susan *********************************************** 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