Hi Trish, I'm mainly in the "there shouldn't be pain" camp, but there is commonly pain during early breastfeeding because: 1. We mess up the initial learning period by taking babies away before they have a chance to really learn to bf, and we drug them senseless. (Righard and Alaide's work shows the affect of analgesics or even brief seperation of mom and baby after birth on baby's ability to find the breast, attach properly, and suck properly.) 2. We prescribe scheduling feedings so that little colostrum drinker is starving and hangs on for dear life in case someone takes the food away again. 3. We grow up without watching other people latch babies onto the breast, so we don't know how to position and latch them at first. Now, in favor of the "it really does hurt in the beginning" viewpoint: There is an inverse relationship between suck pressure and milk flow. The lower the milk flow, the more pressure the baby is going to use. So I suspect if the milk is a little slow to become abundant, the baby will use more negative pressure, and this might hurt mom's nipples. Also the flowing milk lubricates the nipples to reduce friction - no milk, no relief from friction from the baby's tongue. Interestingly, my homeborn second baby never caused me a second of pain. She was on the breast before she even had a chance to cry, just had time to cough once! When we have a breastfeeding friendly society, and we take care of numbers 1 through 3, and we screen for and treat tongue ties, etc, then we will get an idea whether there really is initial pain during breastfeeding. -- Catherine Watson Genna, IBCLC New York City mailto:[log in to unmask] *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html