At the Fall 2000 ALCA conf in Melbourne, Heather Harris gave a nice paper on
her study evaluating the reliability and validity of an Australian
breastfeeding assessment tool -- The Sucking Codes.  The goal of the tool is
to make assessment of early bfg less subjective, and to make it easy for
busy midwives to use.  She compared this method of scoring with Chris
Mulford's The Mother Baby Assessment Tool (MBA) which was previously eval in
a similar fashion and found to be reliable.  If an institution is looking
for a latch assessment tool, do a lit search and some networking to make
sure that the tool has been eval. for reliability and validity .

It's really nice to see people engaged in study that impacts tool selection,
and such research is another heartening sign to me of advances in lactation
science.

Barbara Wilson-Clay BSEd, IBCLC
Austin Lactation Associates
http://www.lactnews.com

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