I really profited from attending the workshop that Wolf and Glass gave at
the Univ. of New Mexico's annual conf. a few years ago.  It was very well
worth it.  Remember though that OTs and PTs work with lots of severely
impaired infants, many of whom need to be transitioned to oral feeds after
months of medical treatment.  They are not dealing with normal infants, and
certainly, the ability to breastfeed competently remains as my definition of
what constitutes "normal" in terms of infant behavior.  Non-nursing infants
are by definition having a problem which often compromises the course of
breastfeeding.  Consequently, people working with impaired babies prob.
don't often have the opportunity to work with bfg. babies.  That is why it
is so important for BREASTFEEDING  specialists to have a good grounding in
the oral anatomy of infants, an understanding of the physiology of sucking,
swallowing, and breathing, and to be able to identify variations from
normal.  The fact that Wolf and Glass don't specialize in breastfeeding
doesn't bother me a bit.  They prob. know more about bfg. than many of us
know about swallowing disorders or how  respiratory compromise complicates
nursing.  I soaked up what they had to teach and apply it to what I know
about bfg.  I use the info every day, and it helps me distinguish between
normal and not-normal feeding behavior, and to further distinguish between
not-too-bad and real-bad.  This info helps in terms of predicting how long
remediation will take, how I should help the parents plan to feed in the
interim, and it esp. helps me chose the safest alternate feeding method
given the nature of the infant's problems.

Barbara Wilson-Clay, BSEd, IBCLC
Austin Lactation Associates, Austin, Texas
http://www.jump.net/~bwc/lactnews.html

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