Elizabeth Puzar wrote:
>In the past few months I've been called in to evaluate three different
>infants who look like perfect little breastfeeders--but there's no (or
>minimal) milk transfer. I saw two of these babies after they'd seen other
>lactation specialists.   One baby was at MINUS 2 grams after what appeared to
>be an excellent 20 minute feed.
>
>These moms have been able to pump milk.  All anatomy WNL.

Elizabeth, are you sure these babies were actually swallowing? I have seen
a couple of cases where baby seems to be doing everything really well, but
there was little or no swallowing. It seemed as though the mother just had
very deep sinuses, such that baby could not efficiently reach them. It took
several weeks of expressing with an electric pump, and feeding with Supply
Line (SNS type system), or by bottle (or other means), before baby could
milk the sinuses properly. I was not sure whether it was the baby's mouth
that grew bigger, or the mother's nipples becoming more protractile, or a
combination that seemed to allow the two to 'fit together'. One mum I saw
even found that her baby was able to reach the sinuses on one breast
earlier than the other.By about eight weeks she was able to stop expressing
altogether. Obviously, if you can get baby to gape even wider, this may
help in a shorter time period. Good luck.

Joy Anderson IBCLC, NMAA Breastfeeding Counsellor
Perth, Western Australia
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BTW, Jonathon, Maureen's post was very tongue-in-cheek, and 'Ozzie' can
otherwise be spelt 'Aussie' (say it), ie Australian. We Aussies are often
shortening names and adding 'ie', e.g. veggie (vegetable), barbie
(barbeque), sickie (sick day, sick time off work), etc. It reflects the
lazy, laid-back Australian image.