I have been waiting to post on this to Lactnet until I had a better
understanding of what is meant by the term.  Pamela, your post today cleared
up some of it for me, but raises other issues I feel I must address.

Last year I toured the country and part of my 'campaign message' was to try
to get hospital staff to cease and desist using a technique that could
easily be mistaken for the teacup hold, because when used by people who
don't know enough about what they are doing, it is very closely tied to
early post-partum soreness of the worst and most needless kind.

Often, the mother is semi-sitting in a hospital bed and her breasts lack the
firmness and contour to make latching easy for the novice baby.  Instead of
improving her position by helping her to a comfortable straight-backed chair
so that gravity helps to give the breasts a better shap, staff use what I
have come to call the post-partum pinch.  The grasp could be described
nearly exactly as Pamela has described the teacup hold.

Note: I see Pamela has mentioned this should not hurt, and she has been very
careful to note what information the mother must be given, as well as how
the breast must be placed in the baby's mouth, and all these things PLUS
only using the technique when you have the skill to judge when it's
appropriate, will avoid the pitfalls I have learned to associate with it.

When used by someone who just has the quick and dirty crash course in baby
latching, the result is often that the baby gets latched onto an empty
pocket of skin which has been lifted away from the very fluid tissue under
the nipple-areolar complex, and doesn't get a deep enough latch to effect
good milk transfer.  Baby sucks all the harder, and the skin damage after
just a very few minutes is impressive.  Open sores or scabs are common after
a day or two of this technique.

It got so when I saw breasts with that line of soreness at the nipple tip,
parallel with the baby's lips when on the breast, I would give the mother my
cloth breast model and say, 'Show me what you do' or 'Show me how they
helped you.'  INVARIABLY (screaming now) they would roughly pinch together a
fold of tissue beside the nipple and lift it toward the baby, and say: "they
pinched like this, and pulled my breast forward, and shoved the baby onto
it."  Pinch, pull and shove were the words used by virtually all mothers.
The exceptions said the breast was stuffed into the baby's mouth instead.
:-(

So I would plead that anyone using this technique please use caution, make
clear to the mother why you are doing so, and don't let anyone watch you who
doesn't have as much skill as you do.  I have found that simply changing
position or using a C-hold is sufficient 99% of the time on the first
attempt.  The other one per cent take longer but they get there too.  Later,
with an older baby, mothers often use a modified teacup technique and do
just find, but it is critical in the early days that they know how to avoid
nipple trauma.

The staff people who used it the most were often known as the quickest
latchers in the west.  Too bad they didn't have to go home with all those
mothers and see the lovely results of their help two days down the line.

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