Carol asks: "Do babies feed frequently in the first 24 hours of life if they are 
mainly in close contact with the mother...skin to skin?"

We have found that mother-infant proximity is very important to feed 
frequency in the initial hours and days of life, and also appears to have 
consequences for breastfeeding continuation. 

In a recently published study of breastfeeding frequency on the 1st 2 
postnatal nights with 64 infants randomised to 3 locations (in mom's hospital 
bed, in side-car crib attached to mom's bed; in standard bassinette alongside 
mom's bed) we found feed frequency in the 1st two locations (both in 
prolonged contact with mom) was double that in the third -- bed and side-car 
infants fed an average of at least once per hour (determined via all night 
video). Bassinette infants fed on average only once per 2 hours, with some 
infants not feeding at all.
 
Ref: Ball, HL. et al 2006. Randomised trial of mother-infant sleep proximity on 
the post-natal ward: implications for breastfeeding initiation and infant safety. 
Archives of Disease in Childhood 91(Dec): 1005-1010.

We followed up these mothers and infants for 4 months. The proportion of 
dyads still engaged in any breastfeeding at 16 weeks by randomised condition 
(on postnatal ward) were: bassinette = 43%; crib = 73%; bed = 79%. 
Proportions exclusively breastfeeding to 16 weeks were: bassinette = 20%, 
crib = 40%; bed = 50%. The data on breastfeeding continuation were not 
published in the above paper (not a primary outcome measure of the RCT) but 
currently are in press in a follow-up publication. 

Regards,
Helen Ball (PhD), Parent-Infant Sleep Lab, Dept Anthropology, Durham 
University, UK.  (www.dur.ac.uk/sleep.lab)

             ***********************************************

Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html
Mail all commands to [log in to unmask]
To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or [log in to unmask])
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet or ([log in to unmask])
To reach list owners: [log in to unmask]