Dear all: I have recently had yet another case that I feel hits the level of abuse. While I'm sure that the vast majority of IBCLCs in hospitals would never do this, I have had several cases of nurses grabbing women's breasts in ways that mothers feel are abusive. This poor mom had her nipple (not areola, she showed me the area) grabbed and pinched to the point that tears were streaming down her face. She was not asked permission to touch her breasts. It immediately brought back another woman whose breasts were bruised by an overly agressive nurse in the hospital. Ususally mothers are so shocked by this process that they don't open up about it until they get out of the hospital and about 50% of my consultation is listening to how they felt about their breasts being grabbed. Similarly, I have been paying attention to an increasing number of women who call because they have decided to abruptly women. The configuration of this profile is typically the woman who had a head ramming nurse in the hospital who shoved her baby's head down so the chin was in the chest, the pain was excruciating for mom and both ended up crying.... repeatedly. Then the baby started exercising its instinctive reflexes and fights back when the head is pushed into the breast so mom thinks the baby is rejecting her. The baby stops latching or mom stops trying because she feels she's been brutalized. Mom started gettng engorged and was told not to pump. Then of course the baby nurse said weaning at once was the best way to go. So, I get mom in either full blown pathologic engorgement or mastitis. This is not a one time or ocassional occurance to get these phone calls. I usually spend a long time on the phone with these women even though I probably should not because I'll never see a dime out of my time, but I do it because I want these women to know that there is another way that does not feel as brutal. I talk to them about what Rebecca Glover calls the instinctive position, how to recuperate their bonding with the baby through skin to skin, explain why our health care system has lost the art of assisting moms to breastfeed in ways that don't feel so brutal to these women, and encourage them to consider a bit of breast time IF they feel up to it as they gradually slow down their supply. So, I want to mention this to those of you who work in hospitals if you have the opportunity (and I know this is difficult) to gently nudge the nurses in your hospitals into a different mind set about latching. At the ILCA conference I did not see many posters or materials with the snuggled together, neck extended, instinctive position that I understand from talking to some of the Australians at the ILCA conference is so widely used that they didn't even know that some US IBCLCs call it the "Aussie latch". I mostly saw repeated diagrams at the conference that were the chin tucked head ram latch from other quarters. Please check out Rebecca Glover's posters and/ or video if you can ---- Jay Gordon's website also had a very nice video clip (from Jack Newman) that nicely illustrated this much more gentle method of latching. Babies hang their mouths open much longer when their neck is extended, so you don't need to SLAM them on the breast. Mom doesn't feel so intimidated when she can take her time and firmly, but not roughly, press her baby to the breast. Best regards, Susan Burger *********************************************** 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