It stands for Reverse Pressure Softening. It's a technique I developed in
clinical practice over the years before I retired from MCH nursing.
It is a modification of the Hoffman technique, but I found that name to
be like an albatross around my neck when I first tried to write up my
ideas 8-10 years ago. I believe there has been too much misinterpretation
of the source, the one short article Dr. Hoffman wrote nearly 50 years
ago.
I have explained it on LN before and felt I would be repeating, so I
hoped people would just go to the archives, (3-28-01), to find a short
description of the technique and briefly, what all it can accomplish.
Part of it says:
<Here it is in a nutshell:
<Simply place your thumbs or the flats of the mother's two fore fingers
(perhaps placing your thumbs on top of them) just opposite each other,
near the base of the nipple. Press the areola gently but firmly straight
inward toward the chest wall for a full 60 seconds by the clock, then
repeat in the opposite quadrants.
Or if the mother has short nails, I tell her to curve the 3 middle
fingertips of each hand and "plant them" at the base of the nipple with
the flat surface of the fingernails actually touching the sides of the
nipple, then press straight inward on the areola.
I suggest that she sing a full lullaby, which occupies close to 60
seconds and sounds less worrisome than watching the clock. And as Diane
has so cleverly put it in one of her new papers, the object is simply to
make a ring of dimples at the base of the nipple.>
The one addition I have since made is that 2 or 3 repeated 60 second
applications in each quadrant may be needed if the swelling is severe.
I wrote a 750 word article on it in one of the final editions of the BCS
newsletter several years ago, and Jan Barger has graciously given me
permission to use it any way I like. I believe that may be too long for
LN, but I will be glad to forward it to anyone who contacts me privately.
So far, I have sent it to Rachel Myr to translate into Swedish, for use
in her lectures and the publication she edits. She is one of my most avid
supporters as I continue trying to write it up in more detail, and with
complete references, to submit to JHL.
She has encouraged me to append my name to it, but I felt it more
appropriate to invent a new term describing just precisely what is being
performed. Perhaps I should be "watching my semantics" and using the full
term itself, instead of an acronym, at least till it becomes better
known.
I am most grateful for the positive feedback and terrific support from
many of my Lactnet friends around the globe who have told me they used
the technique and found it helpful. Thank you Renate, Diane, Winnie,
Esther, Virginia, Ellen, Pamela, Catherine, Pat G., and others I am
probably forgetting to mention. And thank you listmothers for making this
fertile medium of information exchange possible!
I eventually hope to make it much more familiar to the maternal/child
health care community, and connect what is really just my modification,
to the original thoughtful observation and article by Dr. Hoffman.
Without this as a foundation for clinical use, it would never have
occurred to me.
Jean
*****************
K. Jean Cotterman RNC, IBCLC
Dayton, Ohio USA
(still "in labor", in transition in fact, with my newest baby, the RPS
article.)
I wrote a short article for Jan Barger's group's newsletter several years
ago which I am attaching. Slowly but surely, I am writing a more detailed
article to submit to JHL. I have had very positive feedback from several
LC's around the globe.
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