Hello my friends, I'll be honest and admit that I haven't searched the archives for the answer to this one, mostly because I don't have the time, as you will see. First, my son Bobby is doing well, still doing his licking thing at the breast, not more, not less, and it's all OK with me. Sometimes I'll spray milk all over his face, some of it goes in his mouth, and he'll just crack up, along with the other kids. It's great fun! For anyone who doesn't know the story behind what happened to him, and is interested, someone much more computer literate than I make a link with his story, so now it is easier to access. (For those of you who don't know, he had a chylothorax after open heart surgery, and we had to make skim breastmilk. This is the story of how we were able to do that.) http://web3.foxinternet.com/lglessner/bobby.pdf But in my heart, I truthfully doubt he will ever nurse again unless I get his face and throat cleared of this NG tube. There are many reasons why this tube is not the better option anymore, so I think in the next day or two, (I am getting cardiology to push surgery along as we speak), Bobby will be having another surgery for a G tube. Here's the question, as well as a request to please send us your thoughts and prayers. I want to use breastmilk on the stoma to help heal it. When he had each of his heart surgeries in the past, I would always try to sneak a spray of breastmilk onto his healing incision, although I was discouraged from doing so by the doctors. They said it would be hard for them to assess the incision if it was moist from the EBM, and they might interpret the moisture as the beginning of an infection. I did it anyway, and blew on it to dry it before they would see anything. I would like to do the same thing with this surgery, and I will sneak it if I have to, but it sure would be nice to educate the doctors and be up front about the whole thing. If there is a dressing on the incision, sneaking it is a major ordeal anyway. I have heard of nasty stories about granulation tissue around the stoma, and infections around the site, so being able to use EBM is especially important to me. Are there any papers, information, easily accessible articles on the healing properties of breastmilk? If there is any information on skin healing or incision healing specifically, that would be ideal. I just don't have the time to search the archives. Thank you once again for all of your support. I'll sneak in a short note to let you know when he is definitely going in for the surgery, and then another to tell you how he did. Hugs to everyone, Trish *********************************************** 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