Yasmeen,

My daughter had some experience breastfeeding prior to her cleft palate repair at 6 1/2 months, but went on an all out nursing strike for two weeks immediately after surgery. 

The method I used might be applicable to the adopted 7 month old baby. I used all of the usual techniques for overcoming a nursing strike like bathing together, rocking her to sleep against my bare breast and offering her the nipple just as she nodded off, etc. The Breastfeeding Answer Book has a good description of the phases of breast acceptance (like licking the nipple) which might be encouraging for the mother. 

My daughter refused all of the above. So I tried an SNS on it's own, then a nipple shield, then an SNS with the nipple shield taped on top, which is what worked for us. The sensation is not nice - I felt like a human bottle - but nursing with all that paraphenalia was still better than not nursing at all. It was very hard to keep the nipple shield on because the milk would leak through and the tape would come off, but that meant we quickly weaned from it. We only used that method for a couple of days - but as I said, she had had practice beforehand.

You can read quite a good account of a mother teaching her son to breastfeed for the first time at seven months with a similar technique (that's where I got the idea) in the Australian Breastfeeding Association booklet 'Breastfeeding Babies with Clefts of Lip/Palate http://www.mothersdirect.com.au/catalogue/aba-booklets-2/breastfeedingbabieswithcleftsoflippalate

Good luck to the mother,

Alice

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