Jean brought up the thought about the concept of post traumatic feeding
disorder as it might relate to infants. There was a study published on just
this topic:

Benoit D, Coolbear J. Post-traumatic feeding disorders in infancy: behaviors
predicting treatment outcome. Infant Mental Health J 1998; 19(4):409-421

While it may not be directly related to breastfeeding (the infants were
bottle-fed), the article does point out that such things as aversive feeding
techniques can contribute to this problem of food refusal. It also mentions
GE reflux, feeding tubes, suctioning, etc as contributing to an infant's
refusal to feed. It makes me wonder about the subsequent feeding problems we
see with babies who had their head crammed onto the breast, fingers poked
into their mouth, and bottles or pacifiers shoved into a closed mouth. I have
had numerous mothers describe the rough handling of the baby by the nurse in
the hospital to get the baby to breastfeed. This has distressed the mother
and resulted in babies being discharged who are unable to approach the
breast, let alone latch on.

Anyone else seeing this?

Marsha Walker, RN, IBCLC
Weston, MA

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