In the hospital I work in we have a huge number of near term infants, between 35 and 37 weeks. They present with their own feeding issues. I have noticed these babies might breastfeed well once or twice in 24 hours. I am finding that these little babies are subjected to multiple glucose checks (heal sticks) in order to verify a stable blood glucose level. Quite often these babies require more calories to push the glucose up to normal than what they are able to get via breastfeeding and so they are given formula supplements by the second or 3rd feeding of their life. Now you should know up front...we are a team of 3 LC's in this hospital, and get mother pumping asap in order to use her milk first (if we can get any). In June we (LC's) have been asked to speak at our perinatal conference about the feeding challenges of the NTI (near term infant). These babies and mom's are the hardest to work with sometimes, cuz the baby LOOKS TERM, but acts premi. It is such a challenge to get everyone, parents, dr's , nurses, etc on board to make this successful. I feel like we still have a way to go before we truly get into a smooth system of care delivery. I am posting this to request help. What are others doing? We have talked about sparing calories by using isoletts...but that has draw backs in that mom and baby are separated and we keep running out of isoletts. Skin to skin reads well, but it has it's time limit. Sooo.....can we start a discussion about the near term infant? Thank You All ahead of time..........Roni Carter RNC, IBCLC *********************************************** 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(R) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html