Carol wrote <it is clear to me watching the "normal" procedures in the NICU, that they cause oral aversion. watching a baby get a bottle forced into his or her mouth, then wiggled and rotated and shoved and other such cute tricks to "get them to take their feedings faster,"> After years and years of working in nurseries 3-5 decades ago, much of it on short-staffed night shifts, I can clearly identify with what you describe, and plead guilty as charged. I just didn't know any better at the time. I actually felt very virtuous for "helping keep the hospital running efficiently while the administrators, doctors, and parents slept." When I began to realize the significance of this some time ago after attending a seminar by an OT-PT team, all sorts of non-infant-feeding questions came into my mind, such as "Could this have any connection with later anorexia nervosa, especially if the parents were taught to forcefeed?". And could this be one factor in the later development of other kinds of eating disorders, and adult obesity itself?" <its clear to me, however, in observing, that there are several problems, one of which is a lack of connection between actions taken with babies and results. also, caregivers obviously reach a point of complacency with procedures that enable them to perform acts of casual cruelty without thinking about what they are doing.> Again, guilty as charged. Another question popped into my mind: "Do you suppose 'Deep Throat' started out with intubation and other high risk care?" And of course, all sorts of further questions concerning "body memories" and "frozen feelings" could proceed from that. I even remember reading of something written nearly 50 years ago by John Bowlby, a pioneer in the study of maternal-infant attachment, about an adult who was helped to bring back repressed preverbal body memories about a smothering feeling associated with a large firm breast being forced into his face. Jean Ridler posted this on LN on July 15: <Take a look at this: http://home.att.net/~jspeyrer/patparent.htm Do We Have to Keep Repeating the Past? by Pat Tongren. It has a link to an article by Dr Nils Bergman that is worth reading> The article is very thought provoking, and though it is about an entirely different aberration in infant care, it assures me that LN is providing a link with those who are interested in Pre-and Perinatal psychology. Does anyone know if any retrospective research has been considered on those with various types of eating disorders, sexual addictions, obsessive-compulsive disorders, etc., and the type of feeding, nursery care and invasive procedures done on them as infants in preverbal stages? It would be difficult to access nursery records and procedures from too far back. And much was not entered into records years ago. (My career started during the height of the baby boom and I remember we didn't even have charts on babies. We used only an unofficial daily nursery feeding workbook, with q.4 h. or 3 h. and "comments" columns, supplied by ABM companies if I remember correctly, and long since discarded). What has more recently been entered into the records is often done in sort of medical shorthand that only a thoughtful practitioner who was active during the time period when a particular procedure was in vogue could help translate into the sensations it imposed on the baby. (Does anyone else remember inserting needles under the skin between the shoulder blades of a premie, first injecting hyaluronidase through the needles to begin administering fluids through the process of hypodermoclysis? Is it still done elsewhere in the world?) There is so much yet to learn and disseminate into the world about the need for UN-traumatic ways to care for babies! Especially among OB and pediatric personnel! In the meantime, what I have been reading about attachment parenting makes more and more sense to me. I hasten to add, after having come through the years with something labeled "permissive parenting", (which was interpreted in all different ways), that as children mature, this must include providing parents with a clear understanding of what appropriate boundaries are and when and how to teach them. Hopefully, we can create social conditions and health care to allow more and more parenting to begin with a good breastfeeding experience. (But perhaps learning attachment parenting might be doubly important with artificial feeding, Susan,e.g. starting with elevating the baby to 45+ degrees during feeding and pacing feedings to stretch them out to 20+ minute so as to avoid choking sensations, "chugg-a-lugging" and overfeeding.) This is part of what keeps me motivated to try to keep on "blooming where I am planted" and "brightening the corner where I am"! "I will pass this way but once, and whatever good I can do . . . . . . . ." Jean _________________________ K. Jean Cotterman RNC, IBCLC Dayton, Ohio ___________________________________________________________________ Get the Internet just the way you want it. Free software, free e-mail, and free Internet access for a month! 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