After several aborted cup feeding attempts with term babies and with some
encouragement from some of you on Lactnet, I finally have introduced cup
feeding (it turned out rather beautifully!) to two families.  Both families
felt confident they could cup feed their infants when they left.  One family
on a followup appointment two days ago was told that her baby breastfed so
poorly that she needed suck training and is now finger feeding to help train
her suck.  Her mom called at 0800 frustrated that feedings are now taking
upwards of 45 minutes to an hour.  Am I missing something here?

The baby was a vacuum assisted vaginal birth with epidural anesthesia, 5 days
old, 7lb, 2 ounces, (7-7 at birth) and my experience with these babies is
that it can sometimes take quite awhile for them to get well coordinated at
the breast.  Mom had nipples that were deeply cracked and bleeding so she was
pumping temporarily to heal.  Because the person who made the recommendations
about suck training is a professional colleague in the same program I work
in, I want to be respectful and yet have accurate information.  The mother
was a little frustrated with cup feeding because some of the milk spilled and
the baby was sipping the milk, not using her tongue very much. (Sounds normal
to me) The baby had gained 1 1/2 ounces over 3 days, but mom had decreased
her feeding frequency to 7 times in 24 hours. (It was Christmas with two
other small children afterall!).  I figured the baby would get the sucking
right on the breast (nipples now healed, no pain with nursing, but poor milk
removal) while getting expressed milk from the cup until her ability to be a
more effective feeder came around.  Any comments or ideas?  Feel free to
e-mail me
<[log in to unmask]> or we can have a general discussion.

Also, does anyone have a "package" of information for MDs (residents)
regarding infants of gestation diabetic mothers and breastfeeding in the
hospital?  e-mail me please <[log in to unmask]>