Anne K. said,
>I suggested she sit up in a kitchen chair
>to latch for a day, sitting up straight to lengthen her waist and thus bring
>baby closer.

I'm sure others of you have found to be the case, too, that a mother's
total body position affects her comfort and success at a given feeding.
Last week I worked with a mother who was experiencing very sore nipples.  I
checked baby's latch and it looked good, as did his body alignment, and the
feeding went great, with no pain.  Mom was on the couch, with pillows for
some support.  I asked her where she had been feeding and she pointed out a
chair with arms. We talked about the importance of her and her baby's body
position.

Later she called and said that after a day of no discomfort she tried the
chair again and had much pain.  She noticed that the arms of the chair
raised her own arms and that baby's neck was bent up. The couch is the
feeding scene for this mom.

One reason that I like my home visit practice is that I can see such things
as this.  Once I was working with a mom who said that when I was there all
went well and when I wasn't the feedings were painful.  I know some of this
is the "cheerleader effect", but I asked her where she was feeding when
alone, and she said, "Upstairs in the bedroom."  The chair up there was an
heirloom rocker, which proved to be the problem.  I assured her that, in
time, the family would be properly honored by her feeding her baby in the
heirloom rocker, but during this learning time other sites would be of
benefit.  I returned to help her feed in the side-lying position for the
night-time feeds.

On this note, it is my impression that in cultures where there isn't a lot
of specific furniture, all mothers feed lying down at first.  Why do
American women have so much trouble learning to feed lying down?  Is it
that those first feeds are sitting up, either on hospital beds (ACK!) or in
chairs?  Or is part of it a carry-over from bottles, which is the internal
picture that women have of feeding?  Or is it that they haven't seen women
feeding lying down and their bodies haven't taken in that experience?

I have read that just watching women feed their babies at breast will
inform my body of the sublties of the process--sort of like "The Inner Game
of Tennis", etc. We probably need couches at LLL meetings (WOW!) or in our
LC offices where women can watch others feed lying down. ( Maybe the LC can
lie down once in a while too.) Of course, what we really need is everyone
breastfeeding so that a zillion positions can be observed by our bodies.
Then we could focus on the rare problems that make feeding a challenge.

Patricia Gima, IBCLC
Milwaukee


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