Jessica, I have heard several times before on Lactnet and elsewhere about how tongue tie and other midline defects often occur together, so this seems to be one of these cases. A cleft of the soft palate certainly *does* affect breastfeeding and the baby absolutely requires suction in the back of the mouth to breastfeed. After Mike Woolridge's articles some years ago, with ultrasound imaging at the time, we all thought that babies 'strip' the milk from the breast, using the jaws and tongue, and milk was expressed as the tongue came *up*. Now with much more highly-developed imaging techniques available, the latest ultrasound studies from Peter Hartmann's team (Donna Ramsay) has shown the milk being expressed when the tongue is coming *down*. What is actually happening is that the tongue drops, and creates suction in the back of the mouth and this 'sucks' the milk out of the breast. Tongue rises again and baby swallows. It seems that it works more like a breast pump than we thought! Following on from this, it is obvious that a cleft of the soft palate would prevent the formation of suction in the back of the mouth and therefore have a huge impact on breastfeeding efficiency. Joy -- ****************************************************************** Joy Anderson B.Sc. Dip.Ed. Grad.Dip.Med.Tech. IBCLC Australian Breastfeeding Association counsellor Perth, Western Australia. mailto:[log in to unmask] ****************************************************************** *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] 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