The mother who doesn't want to supplement with a bottle and who is having trouble with the SNS may never have thought about the difference between finger-feeding and bottle-feeding.  The finger is skin, yes, but it's stiff and skinny, and very unlike a breast.  The boluses may be smaller, which makes feeding more tedious for both mother and baby, may slow the baby's catch-up growth, and may not accustom the baby to a normal feeding rhythm.

Any form of feeding away from the breast has advantages and disadvantages.  In many ways, a paced bottle is the most breast-like approach: fat and soft and rather fast-flowing.  I've seen lots of babies do much better when they were switched from a finger to a bottle, and some who did much better (for different reasons) when they were switched from a bottle to a finger.  When the most important task of the moment is catch-up growth, a bottle makes a lot of sense.  Darillyn's and others' techniques can help coax the baby back to breast if he needs coaxing once he's strong enough to perform there.

Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC  Ithaca, NY  USA
www.wiessinger.baka.com

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