Hi Wendy < Is it possible the mom was undiagnosed gestational diabetes, since the baby was so large? would that have contributed to the problems> Although the baby was relatively large, if he/she was a term baby it would still fit into the normal (upper range) weight range. It is also worthwhile looking at the parents size and the history os size of other siblings because what may be a large size for one family is not for another. Is the baby well proportion or does baby look obviously macrosomic? It is usually the babies >4.5kg or > about 10 pounds that we have significant concerns about possible hyperinsulinaemia in the baby. However large babies in petite families or families with a history of significantly smaller babies could warrant closer investigation. Undiagnosed gestational diabetes is a technical possibility. In my experience (in Australia ) all pregnant mothers are rountinely offered a glucose tolerance test to identify those mothers with gestational diabetes so they can be appropriately monitored and treated. Some mothers decline the offer of this test and a number fail to turn up for the appointment, so I have seen babies with hypoglycemia whose mothers were probably gestational diabetic (untreated because of no glucose tolerance test) and subsequently developed symptomatic hypoglycaemia. Where I work macrosomiac babies > 4.5 kilogram have routine blood sugar levels to rule out hypoglycaemia but a term baby less than this weight would not routinely have them done. This is in line with World Health Organisation recommendations and current research into neonatal hypoglycaemia. <? Does CP cause hypoglycemia or vice versa? Should they consult a lawyer?> If the baby was only a few days old any changes on head ultrasound (apart from a fresh bleed) would have been caused from an ante-natal insult. No-one at delivery or subsequent to delivery could have done a thing about it. From my experience, a subsequent ultrasound at 2 weeks shows up an insult from birth. Sounds like the baby has been diagnosed with leukomalacia. Severe hypoglycaemia and subsequent fitting can cause brain damage but seems like the baseline ultrasound was done early to pick up any previous insults--and this is standard practice.. If the child fitted first and suffered an hypoxic episode this could have caused the hypoglycaemia. From now it is a case of wait and see whether the baby meets its developmental milestones and how severely handicapped he or she is. Some babies with seemingly severe insults do remarkably well and others with only mild insults are severely disabled. Again with breast feeding it does depend on the severity of the insult and how well co-ordinated the baby is. <In the mean time, I guess just coming to terms with the CP and waiting to see if it is mild or more (not sure how long it takes to know that) will be a lot for this family to deal with. I didn't even discuss breastfeeding with my friend tonight, so maybe this is off topic. I welcome input about what breastfeeding issues might be complicated by the CP and how it might benefit this baby. (now I am back ON topic, right?)> Breastfeeding is even more important for infants such as these and breastfeeding or expressing milk is something important and tangible the mother can do for her baby. Apart from the physiological and immunological benefits breast milk is optimal for brain development and increased IQ--sounds like baby needs all the help that can be given.Please don't shy away from discussing breast feeding. In my experience mothers welcome the opportunity to help their baby as much as possible and it is important to discuss this issue early before the mother loses her milk supply. The support and empathy of someone such as yourself is an invaluable help to these mothers. Marian Rigney _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html