This sounds like a cleft of the soft palate, or some kind of dysfunction of the musculature in that area. To diagnose a cleft of the soft palate, you need to have the baby suck on your finger, and you can feel either a "U"-shaped defect in the cartilage of the soft palate, or sometimes it feels like the 2 sides of the soft palate are not fused together. In extreme cases you can look in the back of the throat and see either a bifid uvula or no uvula at all. Unfortunately, there isn't much you can do for this. The babies just can't acheive/maintain adequate suction to stay latched well and remove milk. It is difficult for me to understand how a seemingly minor defect can cause so much trouble, but it does. Kathy Leeper, MD, IBCLC Medical Director, MilkWorks- a nonprofit breastfeeding support center in Lincoln, NE *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [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