I felt the need to quickly join in on the thread related to covering the infant's hands with the cuff at the end of the t-shirt. What is started in the hospital or modeled by the clinician is something that parents will continue doing at home. I saw a patient one time who kept her baby's hands tucked into those miserable cuffs because her health care providers and family kept telling her that the baby would scratch his face if the hands were not covered. She came in to see me because she had sore nipples. When she went to put the baby to the breast, one nipple was oozing so much pus it stuck to her bra. When we went to put the baby to the other breast I noticed that his hands were cuffed and removed the cuffs so that his hands could massage the breasts (like a kitten), as that kneading of the hands is part of the feeding response. What I saw was that every tiny fingernail had an infected hangnail on each side of it. Three quarters of one thumb had turned black. What a mess. I guess I must weigh in on the side of allowing those little hands to feel the soft warmth of the mother's breast and knead the tissue like they were intended. Marsha Walker, RN, IBCLC Weston, MA *********************************************** 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