Hi,
>Masse cream is not  a n item used currently in the UK, infact I have not seen
>any for at least 10 years. I am certain that some women will still use it as a
>friend, mother, aunt etc will buy it fro them, but it is very uncommon.

They sell it in my local pharmacy, next to the other brands of chemical
concoctions to "cure" nipple pain. A certain supermarket (which also
stocks Masse Cream) has recently started making it's own brand and a
publicity leaflet for new mothers, listing "What you need for hospital",
includes the recommendation that you bring a tube of this cream. It too
contains things with three syllable chemical names that I wouldn't want
to feed to a lab rat, let alone my baby! :-( It does advise you put it
on "after a feed" and wipe off "before" a feed, but whoever wrote those
instructions was not familiar with how demand feeding works, IMHO.

You can just imagine the baby crys for a feed, you nurse him for 5
minutes. He goes to sleep, you apply the cream and do up your bra and
hardly have you finished when he decides that perhaps, after all, he
would like a little more. So you wipe it off hurridly (during which time
he's getting annoyed), put him to the breast again and either you
haven't got it all off, in which case he's slipping and sliding all over
the nipple, or you've got it all off but scraped the nipple with the
tissue in the process, which is making you sorer. No wonder some mothers
complain "I thought breastfeeding was *natural*, but it's such a
hassle!"
--
Anna (Mummy to Emma, born 17th Jan 1995, Alice, born 11th Sept 1996,
??? due 18th April 1998)
Email: [log in to unmask]  Web Page: http://www.ratbag.demon.co.uk/anna