Hi Lactnetters!

I am at home on a forced six weeks rest after an extra-uterine pregnancy.
The only good thing to this, is I will have more time to read the posts and
share with all of you. It might help boost my "moral" up a little...

I think you are absolutely right Mardrey to avoid speaking about flat
nipples and etc. around mothers. It makes them feel bad, guilty and not "a
good enough mother". I actually always tell them it's the baby that has
difficulty taking the breast, never her nipples that are not "adequate". I
train all nurses to avoid talking about nipple shape. If an "accessory" is
evaluated as being something that could help (shells, serynge, etc) I train
the staff the inform the mom that this will possibly help the baby to
latch-on, never to help her nipples to become "normal". It is so sad to hear
a man say that his wife is having trouble BF because "she doesn't have any
nipples". And most of the time, this is said with the mom right there,
feeling "inadequate".

If there is a list with hospital-based LCs, please e-mail me.

As for cup confusion, we are know it exists, as well as finger-feeding
confusion, serynge confusion, supplemental nursing device confusion and
nipple confusion. We HAVE to get that baby on the breast as soon as
possible! No alternate feeding method is the right one. I agree that we
should never promote onr over another. We are simply buying time...waiting
until that baby finally latches on! In the hospital were I work, they use
finger-feeding and a gavage tube at breast. I am making guidelines as to how
to use it and WHEN to use it. They were never really told. They are also not
comfortable with cup feeding...do not know how to hold the baby, afraid baby
might choke (naturally), and say it takes to long (much longer then bottle
feeding they say...). As you can see I have a lot of work to do.

Bye for now,