Julie Brill's raising this question reminds of something her friend and
others who adopt babies might want to try--and share the results of. As you
all know, here is where the research was done on the competence of newborns
to mothers who did not use anesthesia. (The doctor who made the film many
of you have seen actually stole the idea (and part of the film) from the
nurses who discovered it in Stockholm and misunderstood somewhat what they
were trying to do. There is no need of course to put the baby on the
mother's stomach. They filmed babies in Sweden and Zambia to show newborn
competence not suggest it was always necessary to do it that way. The baby
can be put closer to the mother's breasts but need not be helped onto the
breast usually.) Anyway, some nurses have gotten the idea that this feeling
of experiencing one's own competence may be important for babies and may
play a role in the natural bonding process. So they have suggested that the
adoptive mother, even for babies who are a few months old, place the baby
on her stomach and let it go through this part of the birthing process,
even if it takes a fairly long time and if it cries a lot at first. They
have seen (so far only a few cases have been tried) that after the crying
is over, the baby rests, crawls up and takes the breast. I suggested it to
a colleague who adopted a couple years ago in hopes it would interest her
in trying to induce lactation (which did not work, as she really wasn't too
interested I don't think), but she said the crawling up part worked well.

Ted Greiner, PhD
Senior Lecturer in International Nutrition
Unit for International Child Health, Entrance 11
Uppsala University
751 85 Uppsala
Sweden

phone +46 - 18 515198
fax   +46 - 18 515380

home phone +46 - 8 191397 (can be used as fax also)