Dr. Hale talks about the importance of the sucking itself, causing saliva
and enzymes to flow that aid in digestion.  So why is this non-nutritive?
And implicit in his post is the idea that the sucking is what is important,
so give the baby a pacifier.  I still say baby should be on the breast
instead.  When that isn't possible, then baby should have an appropriately
shaped, non-vanilla scented pacifier to suck.  Peter was given a pacifier
when he was on IV nutrition, before his intestinal defect was repaired, and
it probably helped him learn to suck and keep those muscles toned and those
instincts intact until he could go to breast/bottle.

And Mandy suggests "comfort sucking" as a term for sucking when milk
transfer isn't taking place, but how can you really tell?  Baby may not be
gulping, but may be expressing small amounts of milk at a steady pace, or
may be fooling around for a while, playing with the nipple, taking little
tiny sucks, then nurse with vigor for five or ten sucks, and then go back to
fooling around.  Why this *need* to categorize sucking as "nutritive" or
"non-nutritive"?

Kathy Dettwyler, still perplexed

P.S.  I just read Alison Hazelbaker's post on this topic -- very informative
and interesting, and makes a lot of things clearer to me.  I guess we also
need a term for "baby has nipple/areola in mouth, but isn't sucking."