Thanks so much to all who gave their opinions on the use of bottles, nipple
confusion and finger-feeding (I too have wondered about the last one).  All
your different and varied comments are SO useful.

Posts on crying and whether this facilitates let-down gave food for thought.
If you are able to "let go" to that extent then it would follow that MER may
not be inhibited..?  I have frequently observed a strange phenomenon - if a
mother I am working with cries while we are together (pain of sore nipples,
because the baby can't/wont latch, because she is worried about "not enough
milk" - or whatever) then it usually follows that she will abandon
breastfeeding imminently.  We may "fix" the original problem (the pain, the
latch, swallowing is identified etc) but she will phone shortly thereafter
and say she has decided to bottle-feed, the baby is so much happier, SHE is
so much more relaxed ...  On the other hand the mother who is really in
desperate straits, tiny baby in High Care, paediatrician wants EBM, or at
home and frantic about how much baby is getting, but who has a very
concentrated, determined look on her face, totally UNemotional, is the one
who is going to breastfeed - eventually - no matter what.   Can anyone
explain this?  Has anyone else observed something similar?

Which brings us to breastmilk-feeding by bottle and Joya Bezette's post.
Yes, I have had several clients who have opted to do this.  When it becomes
apparent that there is NO WAY that this baby is going to be snuggled to the
breast, but the mother has the problem of copious breastmilk production, we
start talking about taking care of her OWN health by avoiding engorgement,
and feeding the milk to the baby by some other method (yes, usually a
bottle, sigh!)  Then there can be a little gleam of interest and a light
dawning when the mum realizes that she CAN continue to give her baby her OWN
milk even though she can't bring herself to deliver it "direct".  I've had
mums "exclusively breastmilk-feed" for several months and I support them all
the way.  Sometimes a little miracle happens and I think the baby GETS to
them - one decided to give breastfeeding a try after 7 weeks, another after
about 2 months and both ended up breastfeeding direct for several months
after this - the moral of this being that while there's milk, there's hope!

Sadly though, with all the enormous pressure we have here to initiate
breastfeeding in the hospitals, and seeing how some women react to this by
repeatedly protesting they want to breastfeed, but doing almost everything
to physically prevent it from happening, I suspect that occasionally there
is something really pathological going on, there sometimes seem to be some
deep dark reasons WHY, and I strongly suspect a history of sexual abuse.
It's really very disturbing. Personally I do not push when this happens,
partly because I don't believe the first 24 - 48 hours after the birth of a
baby is the right time to dredge up old horrors and wounds, but the way this
has the potential to affect the whole mother-baby relationship for YEARS to
come is frightening.  It could be that the tears I see (first paragraph) are
just one more symptom ...  Any thoughts on THIS can of worms anyone??

Marie Davis - WHAT an inspiration you are ..

Pamela, Zim