> When I have days at the hospital where it seems too many moms are 
> starting
> out on shields, I remind myself that I am not seeing normal  newborn 
> babies and
> mothers.  I am seeing babies and moms affected by drugs,  separation, 
> their
> culture, and stress from the way we do birth here in the  USA.  These 
> full-term
> babies, many times, are sucking just like  premature babies.  Their suck 
> is
> weak and disorganized and the  sucking bursts are too brief to get enough 
> milk.


"full term"??  That in itself would be a miracle. So, so many of our babies 
are "near term" inductions at 38 weeks. And I agree, getting those babies to 
actually nurse more than a couple of times in the first 24 hours is an 
achievement. If all else fails and a nipple shield helps, I'll use it. I am 
also trying to get more and more moms to hand express and spoon feed those 
precious drops of colostrum  if their baby doesn't latch---an intervention 
that was rarely needed even a few years ago before inductions became so 
routine.

sigh..........

Kirsten RN IBCLC 

             ***********************************************

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]

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