If I had to pick one phrase which characterizes most of my work, it would be non-latching babies. I work in a hospital which has 9000+ births per year, 90% epidural rates, and 22% c-section rates, and I would say that on a normal day, 60% of the babies do not latch. Normal hospital stay 48 hours for vaginal births, 96 for CS. Procedures which I have found to work: 1. Encourage moms to take advantage of rooming in which is offered in our hospital, but not always understood. After I finish explaining to them how babies feel in the first few days in this foreign place we have brought them to and how the only place they feel good is on moms chest, most moms would not think of leaving the babies to cry in the nursery. 2. Skin to skin. Wait for the babies to lunge toward one breast or the other. Hand expression of small amounts of milk on a tiny spoon: 5 spoons from each breast every 2 hours during the day will prevent weight loss, and maintain blood sugars. The milk I is gently dripped into the baby's mouth, and the spoon never enters the oral cavity. Hand expression shows moms that there is milk, and gives her another tool if ever needed. This must be taught, otherwise many moms will not be able to express even a drop. This also shows that the milk is not in the nipple, but deep in the breast and that the baby has to massage the breast to remove milk, not just suck on the nipple. I show moms a replica of the size of stomach capacity in the first few days to show that the baby does not need huge amounts of food. If anyone thinks that there is a danger of aspiration, I immediately demonstrate to them the fast flow of the bottle nipples that are given in the hospital, and this usually shocks them. 3. Rebirthing, i.e. laying mom on back and letting naked baby crawl to the breast and latch as in the Righard movie. My goal is to prevent major weight loss, jaundice from lack of breastfeeding, and to avoid artificial feeding if possible. Many babies will latch by day 3. Those who do not are sent home pumping and by day 3 bottle feeding with instructions on how to bottle feed in a way that will not interfere with normal suckling at the breast. Most of these babies will latch in the end. What always amazes me is that I see just as many babies who are born in natural births without medications who do not latch in the first days. Israeli moms can have up to 20 ultrasounds during the pregnancy, just to see the baby. According to Beverly Beech in her booklet " Ultrasound unsound", this could also be a contributing factor to non-latching. Esther Grunis, IBCLC Lis Maternity Hospital Tel Aviv, Israel --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.801 / Virus Database: 544 - Release Date: 24/11/2004 *********************************************** 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(R) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html