I don't think that nipple pain is normal, period. It is common, but that's mostly because of the way birth and breastfeeding are handled in our society. And sometimes it's about the infant oral anatomy too (or a mismatch between baby and mom). Studies have shown that babies never seperated from mom after a totally unmedicated birth crawl up to the breast and latch and SUCK CORRECTLY. Babies taken away do not all get to the breast, babies medicated do not all get to the breast, and these babies are more likely not to latch and or suck correctly when put to breast. Add to that the fact that many Western mothers have never seen a baby breastfed when they give birth, and you have a setup for difficulties. Yes, time is almost always helpful with minor breastfeeding problems. But the main difficulty with just applying the "tincture of time" to every situation is that bf problems are most "fixable" if caught early. Some babies and mothers are vulnerable to low milk supply and the whole cascade of difficulties that causes if the latch is not perfect. Some babies don't have the resources to continue to struggle, and become increasingly lethargic; making their feeding less and less efficient, and that both puts the baby in danger, and kills the mother's milk supply at the most vulnerable 1st 2 weeks, when prolactin receptors are proliferating. Since we don't know which babies are going to wind up with hypernatremic dehydration at 7 days of age, we should intervene when babies are not feeding well at the outset. Simple interventions at first (skin to skin and helping with latch for newborns; spoon feeding a little hand expressed colostrum to wake a sleepy 2 day old; fingerfeeding pumped milk for the 3-4 day old who can't latch on due to abnormal tongue movements. I am both a LLLL and an IBCLC. LLLL's see a wide variety of moms, most of whom have relatively minor issues. Breastfeeding is robust, and needs to be, or else how would the human race have survived so long! But babies used to die all the time. Our current technology saves babies that would once have died. These babies often have feeding difficulties. LC's see these babies who once would not have made it. I have personally seen kids with genetic syndromes, cleft palates, heart defects, airway malformations, gi malformations, premies, and tons of severe tongue ties. If these little angels were left to fend on their own, they would not have made it. I am strongly in favor of helping moms breastfeed comfortably and effectively from the beginning. The amount of intervention that most lactation consultants use is not excessive when you think of the multiple difficulties that most of the dyads we see have. Breastfeeding is the normal mode of feeding for human babies. IF the baby cannot breastfeed, there is something wrong. Minor sore nipples are a "getting started" difficulty that many inexperienced moms and babies have. The IDEA that soreness is normal is what gets too many moms into trouble, ignoring a dysfunctional suck or anatomical problem until the milk supply and the baby are both in trouble. -- Catherine Watson Genna, IBCLC New York City mailto:[log in to unmask] *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] 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