I agree. Have a mother I'm working with multiple issues. Baby identified as reflux etc. But am currently having her use a SpecialNeeds Feeder as a re-training device. Now here's a question for the wise ones. Which comes first - the chicken or the egg? Do babies arching with inefficient sucks, perhaps with unidentified type 3 or 4 tongue-ties, perhaps mothers with initial oversupply with unbiological latch-technique etc. turn into reflux babies or does the reflux cause all of the above? Folks that are practicing evidence-based medicine (let's call it "what has made it into the journals" medicine) pooh-pooh any connection around here. Just wondering here - is breastfeeding just another form of alternative medicine - with all the negative connotations that alternative medicine has (like, underground, surreptitious, anecdotal, voodoo) medicine?
-----Original Message-----
From: Lactation Information and Discussion [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of heather
Sent: Sunday, July 12, 2009 5:34 PM
Subject: Re: nipple confusion?
>The issue isn't whether we can agree on a "label" to describe baby who
>is not feeding at breast. Your "nipple confusion" is my "flow
>preference" is her "oroboobular disproportion."
I think it does matter.
The idea of nipple confusion - meaning that babies who get bottles then become unable to suck from the breast so babies who need supplementing away from the breast must never have a bottle - leads to a whole load of other means of getting milk in, like cups, spoons, finger feeding, syringe feeding.
Now, any or all of these may be appropriate tools at times but (as far as I can see) none has any evidence-based claims to be routinely
*more* appropriate than a bottle. I have seen babies come to prefer all of these alternatives to the breast, when breastfeeding has not been 'worked on' alongside the using the alternatives.
The belief that bottles for supplements = confusion, and cups etc are therefore better (in general) is erroneous.
Giving a bottle at least allows the baby to suck, and it tends to allow for closeness and intimacy more easily than cups etc, which can be fiddly and messy.
>
>The real issue is: what support is the mother getting, once she figures out
>her baby doesn't latch and feed the way she thought it would? If the HCP
>says "Ain't no such thing as nipple confusion," and turns and walks away,
>that is hardly addressing what needs attention: a baby who is not feeding
>at breast.
Obviously, all that is true!
Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc, tutor, UK
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