Heather and Rob,
This story reminds me of a something a nurse told me.  She was involved
in a study involving skin-to-skin contact.  I can't remember if the
study was designed to look at infant temperature, or maternal behaviors,
but they were looking at the difference between breastfed and bottle-fed
babies.  Both sets of babies were left skin-to-skin with mothers for
hours.  They had to scrap the study because so many of the
bottle-feeding mothers were discovered tucked in with their babies
nursing happily away at breast!

They didn't publish the study because they couldn't do a comparison
between breast and bottle.  The results speak for themselves and would
have made an interesting article anyway.  If that nurse is on Lactnet,
maybe she can clarify the details.

I've had more positive effects from leaving mom and baby alone wrapped
up together than any other intervention that requires a lot of "tools
and gadgets".

--
Jeanne Mitchell, Austin, TX
http://www.flash.net/~xanth/home.htm
mailto:[log in to unmask]
"You can tell the quality of a person by how
they treat people they don't need." My Dad