I am always seeing babies that have very tight latches in the first few weeks
after a birth. Recently I met a mom that has a sixth month old that has a
very weak suck. The mom had a home birth. The baby was turned around during
the birth and there was about 4 hours of pushing. Mom has high blood pressure.

Baby lost weight and was weak after the birth. After working with different
LC's she started using an SNS with her pumped milk. This improved the baby's
weight.

She also saw a NDT to evaluate the baby. They felt the baby was fine and
would revaluate her in 2-3 months. Mom did not take baby back.

Now the baby is trying to crawl. She has good head control. I watched her
suck without the SNS and she mostly plays at the breast. She goes on and off
quite frequently. She does swallow at some points but it is not consistent. I
showed the Mom how to massage the breast as the baby was on. This seemed to
encourage some more activity. I also suggested massaging the baby's feet.
This also seemed to help for a moment. The mom has successfully breastfed 2
other children.

Do you think this has to do with the extended birth experience? Are there
other ideas to get this child off of the SNS and to suck more actively?

Thanks,
Annette Leibovitz, IBCLC

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