I am beyond my experience and would like some guidance.  Had a mother come
to LLL meeting whose baby was born with positional torticollis.  I will give
the stats that I know and if you need any more feel free to ask.
Baby born via C-section after 2 days of pitocin 9# 13 oz.
Mother exclusively breastfeeding until 2 week check-up and ped. dr. was very
concerned that baby had not regained birth weight and was at 9# 3 oz.
Immediately sent mother to Lactation Consultant and baby was put on SNS with
formula and pumped BM.  1 week later, baby regained birth weight and LC did
a before and after nursing weight check and baby only took in 1 oz BM.
Mother told to give up on breastfeeding that she was not producing  enough
milk and never would by LC and Ped. Dr.  LC helped mother pick out nipple to
bottle feed baby.  (I could just scream!!)  Mother not ready to fully give
up and is pumping 8x/day.  So, at this point neither Dr or LC checked baby's
suck only the positioning at the breast.  Mother noticed that baby's jaw and
neck were not quite right and that milk would drip out of baby's mouth when
eating.  Dr. sent baby to physical therapist who diagnosised baby's
torticollis.   Physical therapist very supportative of  BF and is giving the
mother exercises to try and help sucking as well as help with the positional
torticollis.
At this point baby is 4 weeks old and mother is hoping to breastfeed
exclusively.  We talked about how baby was most likely only getting the
foremilk and not the hindmilk which is why he was not gaining weight, even
though he was having plenty of wet/dirty diapers.  Baby appeared to be
latched on correctly, but was gumming the breast instead of sucking.  Our
plan of attack is to get baby's sucking well and then work on building up
the mothers milk supply.  My question (finally) is what recommendations do
you have for improving baby's suck in this situation?  Also, if anyone knows
of a qualified LC who might be able to work with this mother in the
Vancouver, WA/Portland, OR vacinity.  Hospital LC told mother that they do
not know how to deal with this problem  and that most of their mothers are
not successful  with BFing once they have started supplementing.   I am
quite concerned with this situation as I usually refer mothers to the LC's
at the hospital when their BF problems are beyond what I can help them with
over the phone...I can't believe they told a mother that there was no way to
increase her milk supply at 3 weeks postpartum and to give up!!
Thank you for your help.

Barely controlling my frustration-
Kate McMurry LLLL
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"I would be most happy if my children grew up to be
the kind of people who think decorating consists of
building enough book shelves."      -Anna Quindlen

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