I am glad Laurie Wheeler posted about Assunta's 3 wk old who had only gained
an oz past birth weight.  I agree.  I think that is a very low weight gain
for this time span.  I have posted before about an interesting study done in
Africa (archives will have the actual citation) which observed that infants
breastfeeding well lost very little weight and regained quickly.  This is
observed in a lot of homebirths where infants start gaining almost immed.
Not to gain quickly is a big red flag for me, and the sooner intervention
(1st step is to fix positioning) is begun, the less damage to dig out from
under.  I see babies who really aren't ready to feed well and may take 3-4
weeks to really begin to grow well, with the weight going on in the meantime
slowly and painfully. If baby isn't ill we may decide to just watch and
maximize.  But we work with pedi to rule out illness or congenital defect.
With mom we work on feed freq., & on milk supply maintenance.

Someone else posted about compression stripes across nipples (mom had deep
breast pain.)  PHN said positioning was ok.  No.  Not if there were
compression stripes.  This is a sign that baby was positioning bottom jaw
closure too close to nipple.  Or that nose is digging into breast, backing
chin away and causing it to close out on nipple tip.  Or that baby is too
far out from the breast, with air space showing between cheeks and breast so
that infant is "bottle feeding" on breast.  Dr. Savage-King's book has an
excellent graphic of this latter.  If I were to allow you to pinch my finger
hard enough to cause a compression stripe for 15 min. every two hours, I bet
I would have deep hand pain.  Damaged nerve endings radiate pain.  This
mother also sounds as if she has vascular issues (flushing , cold
sensitivity, and itching) but I bet the compression pain bothers her
especially because of the other sensitivites.

Barbara

Barbara Wilson-Clay, BS, IBCLC
Private Practice, Austin, Texas
Owner, Lactnews On-Line Conference Page
http://moontower.com/bwc/lactnews.html