Jessica, I have heard several times before on Lactnet and elsewhere
about how tongue tie and other midline defects often occur together,
so this seems to be one of these cases.

A cleft of the soft palate certainly *does* affect breastfeeding and
the baby absolutely requires suction in the back of the mouth to
breastfeed.

After Mike Woolridge's articles some years ago, with ultrasound
imaging at the time, we all thought that babies 'strip' the milk from
the breast, using the jaws and tongue, and milk was expressed as the
tongue came *up*. Now with much more highly-developed imaging
techniques available, the latest ultrasound studies from Peter
Hartmann's team (Donna Ramsay) has shown the milk being expressed
when the tongue is coming *down*. What is actually happening is that
the tongue drops, and creates suction in the back of the mouth and
this 'sucks' the milk out of the breast. Tongue rises again and baby
swallows. It seems that it works more like a breast pump than we
thought!

Following on from this, it is obvious that a cleft of the soft palate
would prevent the formation of suction in the back of the mouth and
therefore have a huge impact on breastfeeding efficiency.

Joy
--
******************************************************************
Joy Anderson B.Sc. Dip.Ed. Grad.Dip.Med.Tech. IBCLC
Australian Breastfeeding Association counsellor
Perth, Western Australia.   mailto:[log in to unmask]
******************************************************************

             ***********************************************

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