I don't know about cross-cradle hold causing carpal tunnel syndrome,  but how
one holds a baby at the breast can set off numbness and pain if one already
has carpal tunnel problems.
        I speak here from my own experience with carpal tunnel syndrome during three
pregnancies. Symptoms would start during pregnancy and actually get worse in
the first 6 weeks or so of lactation. My second child has Down syndrome and
she was nursed almost exclusively in cross-cradle hold for two or three weeks.
I had pillows everywhere, and usually a folded receiving blanket or even a
throw pillow under the wrist holding her head. (My hand is getting numb just
thinking about it. And then there was the electric pump I was using on the
other breast--and the four-year-old who wanted to nurse. Only prolactin could
explain my survival.)
        Actually, during that second pregnancy, I had very few CTS symptoms--it
wasn't until the nursing started that it bothered me. So was it the cross-
cradle hold? Or all the fluid-balance shifts that go with lactation? Or the
positioning aggravating an already existing--though barely noticed--problem?

Gwen Gotsch (mom to Kris 11-86; Eliza 12-90 and Kurt 10-92)
LLLI Publications Staff