Hi, Wendy: Interesting that I should see your post today. I just sent a mom home yesterday who was born without her right forearm and hand. Her arm ends just below the right elbow. She wears a vinyl prosthesis that allows the hand some pincer grasp, but that is all. She is not able to pull her arm/prosthesis into her body very far. She needed minimal help with positioning her baby. The system that seems to be working for her is for her to use cross cradle or side-lying on her right side. Baby seems to understand even this early on that he needs to co-operate and help his mom to help him. Thus far she has no other issues and I anticipate that they will do well with nursing. I did suggest to her mother that she buy her daughter a sling so that she can have her hand free to do other tasks. It was a pleasure working with this family and interesting as well. Mom breeds horses for a living and is planning on returning to work when her baby is 2 months old. He will be able to go to work with her, so she does not anticipate having to pump very much. We discussed using one of the hands- free bra devices for the times she will need to pump. We also discussed lactation in horses and she told me that the minute the foal is delivered the clock starts ticking - if the foal is not to it's mother's teat and receiving colostrum by 3 hours the foal will die. She always keeps frozen colostrum on hand for those foals that may need it. She breeds expensive racehorses, so there is a huge financial incentive to get horse babies to their mama's "breast". I reminded her that she already knows all about lactation and the process is very similar for her and her baby. I have her permission to share her story with you. I did post this before, but an excellent resource for helping parents with disabilities is Through the Looking Glass (www.tlg.org). Pam Hirsch, RN,BSN,CLC Clinical Lead, Lactation Services Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital Barrington, IL USA *********************************************** 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