Dear Lactnet Friends:

Thank you Kika,  for clarifying the original statement.

For the mothers not having pain, it doesn't matter about the attachment.

For the mothers having pain, there is more going on. In those cases, a
thorough assessment is required. Sometimes the solution to the mothers pain
is to adjust the attachment and positioning. Sometimes there are other
things going on; we can make a long list.

For example; things can look perfectly fine and the baby transfer no milk
at all; thank goodness for pre/post feed weights

We have learned to change the attachment and positioning over decades of
giving breastfeeding help. While there is no research to say that this is
always the definitive cause of pain, there is enough experience for us to
start there.

Breastfeeding has never been a visual art.

We have to start somewhere, when a mother is having problems. We start with
the obvious. If changing positioning and attachment don't work, we keep
looking for the reasons for the pain. After thorough assessment, we can
find pain from nipple skin infections, or capillary spasms, or babies with
TOT, or subluxation of vertebrae, a history of abuse, or a variety of
things.

For a long time, when breastfeeding was being resurrected into the
mainstream in the 1950s, women were using their breasts like bottles....and
new mothers were told that "it hurts for 2 or 4 or 6 weeks"....and then the
baby would have grown big enough or mom would have figured out a way so
that it didn't hurt anymore. (Kay Hoover shows a photograph of herself
breastfeeding her newborn  with a terrible position and laughingly admits
that it hurt for weeks.)

The thought in those days was that it was the length of time at breast that
caused pain. It wasn't until the late 1970s/early 1980s,  when Kittie
Frantz and Carol L'Esperance published an article (1978? 1983?. . or maybe
both)  that identified pain as the result of positioning that our views
started to shift.

Nowadays, we have laid-back breastfeeding,  written about by Suzanne
Colson, and before then, the door opened with Lennart Righard's research
(1990)  that led to Kittie Frantz and Ann Marie Widstrom both releasing
videos about delivery self-attachment. We realized that newborns do have
abilities and skills.

 Before then,  newborns were not considered to be able to do anything.
(Although Ann Marie Widstrom was gathering her data about the newborn's
abilities starting in the late 1970s in Sweden.)

Before that change, breastfeeding was considered to be the mother's sole
responsibility: she had to hold her baby and her breast a certain way, and
sit a certain way for breastfeeding to work.

Now, thank goodness, we know that babies know more about breastfeeding at
birth than do their mothers.

This is my view of breastfeeding history. ..  .feel free to correct, all
you wonderful Lactnetters.

(Why was Sweden was ahead of everyone in this regard. . .because Sweden had
a midwifery model of care, and the US model of care was physician
dominated? Oh, Marden Wagner, what would you have said?)

warmly,



-- 
Nikki Lee RN, BSN, Mother of 2, MS, IBCLC, CCE, CIMI, ANLC, CKC, RYT
Reviews Editor,* Clinical Lactation*
www.nikkileehealth.com
*Communications are confidential and meant only for whom they are
addressed.*

             ***********************************************

Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html
To reach list owners: [log in to unmask]
Mail all list management commands to: [log in to unmask]
COMMANDS:
1. To temporarily stop your subscription write in the body of an email: set lactnet nomail
2. To start it again: set lactnet mail
3. To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
4. To get a comprehensive list of rules and directions: get lactnet welcome