I am an pediatric occupational therapist and I worked with a few children with arthrogryposis. Unfortunately, I wasn't the You are correct in that the baby shouldn't have probems nursing unless the jaw was involved (which is fairly uncommon although I have seen it). The other issue may be a cleft palate. There is an increased rate of cleft palate with children with arthrogryposis. The good news is, even in the affected joints, you never know how much movement they will be capable of. Once the baby is born it may seem that it doesn't have much movement but as it gets stronger and older it will work muscles around joints that were previously thought to be stationary and will often get movement. If the mom is committed to nursing, I would suggest monitoring the baby closely to ensure intake is adequate and getting in touch with an occupational therapist right off the bat so they can help with some exercises and stretches that the mother may need to do right away to maximize the jaw movement of the child. These children don't have much muscle movement and therefore don't put on weight at the same rate as others. I would monitor the baby's weight gain but don't necessarily hold it to the same rate as the "charts". Feel free to contact me if you need additional information as I may be able to come up with other suggestions for specific problems. *********************************************** 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(R) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html