Worked with a mom and baby today.  Baby nursing frequently and for long
periods.  Nurse worked with baby to achieve better latch.  We were
possibly able to improve latch a little more.  Nurse had noted, and I
concurred that nipple seemed quite long when coming out of baby's
mouth.  Taught mom to grasp farther back than usual and then pull
forward to shorten nipple a little.  No matter what we did, baby would
do nothing but "non-nutritive" sucking (for want of a better term--fast
fluttery suck, all at front of mouth).
Not being able to think of anything else to do, I switched breasts and
positions, and lo and behold, the baby began to change sucking patterns
with increasingly larger proportion of nutritive to non-nutritive sucks,
eventually achieving a good nutritive suck.  No obvious difference in
size, shape, or texture of breasts, areola, or nipples between to
sides.  On side where only NNS noted, I easily expressed large drops of
transitional milk.

Any thoughts?  Anyone seen this before?

--
Bonnie Jones, RN, ICCE, IBCLC
from the sunny S.W. USA
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