Before I went no mail, in the latter half of April, I posted about a baby
with a short tongue who was unable to maintain a painless, effective latch
at the breast.  The mother went home finger feeding.  I wrote "There is no
distress around feeds, and since she is one of those lucky women who lets
her milk down easily to a pump, it's not even that time-consuming.  I'm
encouraging them to push the baby a little, gently, to move onto the breast.
She is gaining well, and supply is fine."

I got an e-mail from the mother while I was in Seattle, 6 days after she
left the hospital, saying "Things are moving forward.  She has gotten all
her milk from me (mother's words for feeding from the breast - the baby has
never received anything but breastmilk- R) the last couple of days.  First
time, it took her two and a half hours to finish a breast.  She let go often
and had trouble re-latching right away, but toward the end she had a long
period of sucking and swallowing and the breast was completely soft
afterwards.  Since then she has taken one to one and a half hours, with a
lot of confusion at the beginning and a longer sucking period at the end.
Seems like she stays on longer when the creamy milk is coming towards the
end.  That is when I clearly hear her swallowing, which I don't at the
beginning.  Poor thing, she was sweaty and her face all warm yesterday after
her struggles to nurse.
But this afternoon, when I put her to the breast, she didn't let go, just
held on and sucked evenly and steadily for fifteen minutes and seemed to
empty the breast in that time.  There was some milk left, I'm sure, but she
fell asleep, clearly content (...) This is big progress as I see it; to
begin with she screamed when she got the breast in her mouth, now she
screams if she doesn't get it!"

As I mentioned before, we don't have a tradition of finger feeding here, so
this was actually my first try with it too.  It won't be the last.  This
mother writes "But was there no one who had tried finger feeding before?  I
thought it was less 'work' than cup feeding because when we used the cup,
she didn't get her sucking needs satisfied, and we still had to let her suck
on a finger anyway.  Besides that, there was the bonus of learning how she
used her tongue, and that we could transition to having the tube at the
breast so she understood where the milk was really coming from."

This is what I use as a pick-me-up.  Feedback from pleased parents.  Does it
every time.
Rachel Myr
Kristiansand, Norway

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