I will introduce myself again as I have not sent any messages to Lactnet for
some time. I work at the Lactation Resource Centre in Melbourne, which is
run by the Nursing Mothers' Association of Australia.  Part of my job is
answering very difficult queries from lactation consultants.  They often
start with 'Have you ever heard of....' or 'is there anything in the
literature about....'  One such query came to me the other day from an IBCLC
who runs a lactation clinic in a local hospital.

A 5-day old baby was admitted because the domicillary nurse (one who visits
new mothers in their homes) was worried about the baby's feeding. So the
presenting problem was a feeding problem.  The first feed in hospital went
well.  During the next feed, which was unsupervised, the mother became
concerned that the baby was behaving strangely and rang the bell for the
midwife on duty.  The midwife came and found that the baby had died during
the breastfeed.  The postmortem showed that there was an underlying problem
of sepsis, which had not been apparent at the time.  There will be an
inquest and naturally the staff, especially the midwife on duty (a very
experienced midwife) and the LC at the hospital are going over all
possibilities.  The query put to me was 'Do you know of any instances where
the actual breastfeeding can cause a death, eg through suffocation?'  My
personal reaction is that if a baby has trouble breathing it will pull away,
so I can't see how this is possible.  Does anyone have any information
(published or anecdotal) that bears on this?

Sorry to present such a sad situation.  It certainly moved me to tears and I
can only imagine the anguish of the family and the hospital staff involved.

Philippa Thomson  IBCLC
Melbourne, Austalia