Forgive me if I repeat-I'm a couple days behind on reading Lactnet
and am responding when I see something I want to react to before I
read all the rest of the digests waiting for me.
I'm sure we all have our own deffinitions for some of the terms we
use.  To me shallow latch means the baby isn't getting as much
breast in the mouth as needed to be effective.  This certainly
inclused only getting the nipple, but can also include getting just
a little areolar tissue.  As we have all seen, areolas (or should it
be areolae?) come in a wide variety of sizes, so getting it all in
baby's mouth is only a guideline for the average size.  If it's only
an inch (about 2.5cm for our non-US Netters) baby can obviously get
a lot more in.  However if it's 5-6 inches-and I've seen some that
big- there's no way baby can get it all in.  One guideline I give
moms is for them to wrap an index finger aroung their nipple and
look at how much areola shows around the finger.  Baby needs to have
no more than that amount and maybe even a little less showing when
latched on.  Of course, she can't see what's showing on the
underside, so needs to "aim high".
Hope this helps.
Winnie Mading IBCLC

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