nothing is supposed to be touching the areola (except the baby LOL).
so i'm thinking it's being taught wrong, or mothers are just adapting
it to touch the areola.  when i'm working with moms, they routinely
try to have their hand/s right up to the nipple....it's something that
constantly needs to be worked on.
i teach i with a C-ish hold....not sure what you mean about U hold
(can't imagine how a baby would be close enough to mom if her whole
hand is under her breast tho maybe im imagining the U wrong)
;

anyway, here's the image..baby nursing from right breast
moms fingers are under her right breast, well back from the
areola.....with large breasts it might be four fingers underneath, but
often it's 3, 2 or 1 depending on breast size and elasticity.   moms
thumb is on top of breast even further back from the areola than the
bottom finger(s).  this essentially sandwiches the nipple/areola so
that baby can get more bottom breast tissue....with proper positioning
of the baby, the baby's chin will hit lower than the bottom of the
areola, then the bottom lip will hit at the bottom-ish edge of the of
the areola, then as the baby's top lip is coming on, it looks like the
nipple is going up the nose.....it just barely looks like it's going
to make it in (sometimes even folding back first), then moms forward
motion with her top thumb gets it all in.

this is a combo of a deep assymetrical latch and the nipple sandwich.......

someone once mentioned the best description......imagine eating a huge
thick thick sandwich.   imagine how you'd squinch it with your hands,
but not too close to the edge b/c then you couldn't bite into it.   so
after compressing it a bit, you'd then angle it slightly upward as
your bottom jaw goes on, then downward to get the top of it in your
mouth......it really is how we would all intuitively get our mouths
around a huge sandwich (hand use and all) and it's a very helpful
visual not only for the helper, but also for mom.

:)
k

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