Wow Cathy. Now that is interesting. I actually hadn't seen that study before and I wasn't able to pull up the full text. (If anybody has it I'd love to read it.) The abstract states that their study group was 10 full term infants, so a pretty measly sample size and I am assuming these are healthy, "normal" newborns. I'm not sure you can generalize that information to the majority of the NICU population of preterm or sick infants or infants with known suck-swallow-breathe problems. I do really love to speculate about why healthy, term newborns did better with breastmilk via bottle than any other liquid. Perhaps because it is the biological norm;-) Perhaps because they don't feel like they're being assaulted with a foreign liquid and they're just swallowing as fast as they can so they aren't drowned by it? I also wonder how old these babies are in the study and what stage in lactation the mothers are as that would also impact the thickness of the breastmilk. Colostrum is thicker, of course. 

I also think Judy's observations about how parents/caregivers interpret the behaviors of bottle feeding babies is spot on. I'm sure we've all had the horrific experience of watching a parent take delight in bottle feeding a child who was absolutely SUFFERING through the feeding. 

Not sure that was at all helpful, but that is an intriguing study. I'd love to see it repeated with a population with known S-S-B difficulties!

-Laura Wasielewski MS, CCC-SLP, IBCLC
Los Angeles, CA

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