I'm a new Lactnet subscriber and this seems to be the place for the info. I
need.  I would like to hear from anyone who has dealt with breastfeeding
babies who have a microdeletion at chromosone 22.  This is called velo-cardio-
facial syndrome or DiGeorge Syndrome or Sphrintzen Syndrome or Catch 22.
These babies are frequently on alternative forms of feeding, i.e. nasogastric
tube, gastric tube or breck feeders.  Even when they are able to bottle feed,
the doctors aren't generally thrilled about attempting to breastfeed because
of the frequency of failure-to-thrive and the cardiac problems many of them
have.
I successfully nursed one of these babies after six weeks on an NG tube.  I
would like to put together a resource list to present to Dr. Sphrintzen who
told me over the phone that if he were my daughter's doctor, we wouldn't
"allow" her to be breastfed, although pumping and feeding her milk with HMF
would have been acceptable.  Lucky he wasn't our doctor.  But he is a resource
for international requests for information on VCFS.  I'm sure his attitude
would change if he were able to see success stories of breastfed babies.
Thanks for any help.
Cyndi Egbert
Childbirth Educator, Former LLLL, Parent activist