Actually babies latch more deeply without a nipple shield than with one
if they have sufficient muscle tone and tongue mobility to do so. This
was confirmed on one of Donna Geddes' recent studies. The nipple tip
winds up much closer to the junction of the hard and soft palate without
the shield than with it in the same infants, in other words. The context
of the study was to examine sucking pressure changes with a nipple
shield in infants who exerted excessive vacuum during breastfeeding,
both during sucking pauses and active sucking (who Donna calls "high
baseline" babies.) Using the nipple shield decreased pressures in 10
such infants (out of 10) but made the latch more shallow.
Catherine Watson Genna, BS, IBCLC NYC
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