>>The baby that I am working with has the extremely strong mouth suction and jaw action. When your finger is in his mouth and he is sucking, you feel like he is going to take off your whole finger.<< When I feel what I hear you describing, I get a different picture. If you are saying that baby's suck feels terribly strong, too strong, and the jaw is working exaggeratedly, I have seen this in conjunction with babies who dont' know how to use their tongues to strip the lactiferous sinuses. Unable to get milk out mechanically, the seem to try to overcompensate with extra hard suction and/or jaw motions, which hurt mom in the process. This particular situation I don't interpret as a clamping, but rather a compensation for a deficit. If baby is truly clamping, then the causes might be different. Does he have difficulty keeping the breast in his mouth for some reason, that he needs to clamp down? Or does he have a "tight" mouth that just needs to clamp down, or???? There are others on this list with expertise to describe further causes as well. Since I cannot see or feel what you are experiencing, however, I could be totally in the wrong ball park. For whatever it's worth-- Lisa Marasco, BA, IBCLC *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html