I know this is a little off-topic, but my husband, a clinical psychologist dealt with a 30-month old who had an omphalocele and a mild language delay. The child had developed a phobia towards men from the trauma of the surgeries. The mother was extremely concerned about leaving the child alone with anyone, particularly men. So, she or her niece attended all the therapy sessions. The language delays presented a real challenge to assisting this child, so my husband worked with the child through drawing pictures. The child was able to externalize his fears through drawing pictures of scary men and talk about his fears sufficiently (even with a limited vocabulary)to resolve his phobia in a few months. Ironically, the mother found out that the niece she had trusted to attend the sessions to ensure nothing bad happened to her son was actually hitting her son. I cannot think of any connection with nursing in this particular case, except that it might provide additional comfort for an infant that will regrettably have to undergo trauma because of the surgeries. Susan Burger, PhD, MHS *********************************************** 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