Hi again. Thanks for the helpful advice so far with flat nipples and shaping the breasts. One poster mentioned the possible connection between large breasts and obesity. I have been wondering this myself since we have many large breasted women deliver at our hospital. I too am trying not to sound insensitive, but I care very much about these mothers and babies and since it seems to be a common problem here I want to explore the issue in hopes to better help these mothers to breastfeed. I have a friend who fits women for post mastectomy breast prostheses and she orders her stuff from a lady in Florida--who commented that we have larger breasted women here. I live in a small town in Missouri and obesity is definitely a concern here. Our district school nurse is very concerned about the increase in childhood obesity in our local schools. Of course, just because a child is a *good* weight does not necessarily mean they are healthier--but that is another story! It just *seems* that more women have larger breasts even those that are not necessarily obese. I should clarify that I don't feel it is the large breasts themselves that makes breastfeeding difficult. I helped a mother who had very large breasts, but they were sort of flattened and the nipple/areola were very soft. This baby had absolutely no trouble latching on and getting milk. I feel it is the large breasts that are rounded (like a balloon) with short/flat nipples that make breastfeeding difficult. Unfortunately it is these more rounded, hard to shape breasts that we see more of at our hospital. I will use RPS and work on shaping the breast more. Sitting up straight is a difficult one because the hospital beds are not good for that. Also C- section moms don't sit very well at first. The only chairs we have in the rooms are the hard rocking chairs. Pillows on the chairs help, but moms don't really like the rocking chairs. Thanks for listening again. Christine Lichte LLL leader, CBE, IBCLC 2003 candidate *********************************************** 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