Hi all,

In Toronto, two years ago, at the June Bf Seminar at Humber College, Leslie
Chandler did a session on this topic. Leslie is a Childbirth Educator at
Women's College Hospital. If this person is local in TO they might want to
contact Leslie at the Childbirth and Family Life program at WCH. I attended
this session and thought it was excellent.

Anecdotally, I helped a mother initiate breastfeeding who had pain when
latching the baby. She said that it also felt "yucky." I enquired about
symptoms of uterine contractions but she said she felt awful all over. I
opened the subject up of how some mothers have described bad feelings if
they had been abused during childhood. She said this didn't apply to her. A
few moments later she told me she had been sexually assaulted(multiple rape)
as a young teenager.
(I don't know how I kept my feelings surpressed when I heard this. I just
felt I was handling a wounded bird suddenly.)

We talked about how she felt about continuing to work on the breastfeeding
and she said she wanted to try. We worked on improving the baby's latch and
lo and behold when the baby latched beautifully the pain and the bad
feelings went away. I talked to the mother later that day and she reported
that as long as she got the baby to latch well, and therefore eliminated
pain, she experienced no bad feelings. Breastfeeding continued within normal
parameters and she didn't have follow up past 1 week, but was invited to
call the phone helpline for breastfeeding at any time.

Anne Kirkham IBCLC
Canada