I have thoroughly enjoyed the thread about holds and latch. We are all
eager to discover what position and body action will assist the next
client/patient to feed her baby successfully.

I have wondered for a long time about our having mothers sit up, using the
"technique of the year" to feed their babies.  I wonder if a mother's
sitting up and using her arms and hands as manipulators to  a effective
latch is part of the problem.  In less technologically oriented cultures it
seems as if Mother is lying on her side and her newborn latches with few
contortions on her part.

Are we wed to the sitting position for mother because of the generations of
bottle-feeding or are we forced to this position because of drugged babies
and lack of oxytocin response in mothers whose spinal columns were filled
with foreign substances during birth?

I know that in time a mother will want to sit to feed her baby but that may
not be an optimal beginning position when she is tired from laboring and
desires rest.

Do any of you encourage side lying from the beginning?  Are your mothers
successful in this more natural position?

I find that tension in a new mother's arms is an added stress to her and
her baby.  Mother is having to learn something totally new to her (when she
is tired from laboring and likely has a sore perineum) and everyone tells
her something different that *must* be done to get it "right." A baby lying
on a bed will be supported by a bed that is not fearful and tense and
desirous of achieving.

I would like to read replies from those of you who work with mothers who
deliver without drugs.

Pat Gima, IBCLC (Private Practice)
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
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