Nils Bergman would call this "shutdown" protest-despair dissociation. It 
is meant to prolong baby's survival in case of seperation from mom, but 
has lasting structural effects on the brain.

Infants skin to skin with mom who are not waking to feed are not in this 
state, they are in an energy conservation mode. While I agree that it is 
more productive to wait for feeding cues in infants, some of these 
starved babies are in danger. In my private practice, I have seen 
infants with hypernatremic dehydration and infants with bilirubin levels 
in the 20's and 30's from poor feeding. So my approach is a little more 
pro-active. If baby isn't feeding well at breast and is in that energy 
conservation mode, we feed another way. I can safely fingerfeed an 
infant in their sleep with a syringe and tube, and have taught parents 
to do the same. We get mom pumping, and baby getting calories, and baby 
wakes up.

For "sleepy" babies in the first days of life, colostrum on a teaspoon 
followed by skin to skin contact is usually enough to get them up and 
eating, but if a baby is still not feeding well after discharge, and 
becomes lethargic,  I don't think this is a normal situation, and I want 
to intervene with calories (from ebm if at all possible), *then* fix the 
breastfeeding.
Catherine Watson Genna, IBCLC  NYC

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

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