I would suggest that the baby be given a gel-filled pacifier to suck while
waiting for oral feeds.  Sucking calms and satisfies, as Chris Mulford
(quoting Uvnas-Mohlberg) reminds us.  Pacification of premature or ill
non-feeding infants also protects the oral functioning so that the
transition to oral feeds is easier.  Surely the hospt. has PTs, OT, and
Speech Paths. on the feeding team?  The expertise of these folks should be
tapped to protect the feeding-related behavior of this baby.  I worked with
a friend's very ill pre-term baby who was never orally fed for many months,
and was never pacified.  She was unable to accept anything by mouth for over
a year, required ng feeds by her increasingly anxious parents.  Even the
doctor admitted this was prob. the result of no one ever putting anything in
her mouth early on.

 There is so much rigid thinking about artificial teats that we may neglect
to realize that the baby who isn't breastfeeding needs some kind of
substitute in order to mimic as much as possible the normal experience.  As
in the situation where research showed that good LC help could over-come the
effect of epidural medication, I am convinced that good bfg support and
knowledge of infant oral motor function in general, can mitigate some of the
distress of ill infants.  This can also allow many of them to be gently
transitioned to breast weeks and months later once the problems resolve.

Barbara Wilson-Clay, BSEd, IBCLC
Austin Lactation Associates, Austin, Texas
http://www.jump.net/~bwc/lactnews.html

             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html