Dear Lactnetters, For reasons of my son's privacy protection, I have asked Kathleen Bruce to forward this message to Lactnet for me. This message regards a comment made by Zena in response to a question from Chris about skin to skin. Zena, you said: When a person is physically abused, the first step to healing is positive interaction and positive touching. Postitive touching can help heal negative touching. You don't stop hugging a child because they were molested. They really have nothing to do with each other. I'm sorry, but you really can't make a blanket statement like this. Our son was molested by a babysitter when he was just a preschooler. Because we very rarely used babysitters, this went on for a period of many months before he told us what was happening. Happily (if you can call it that), this babysitter was only with our son 6-8 times in the course of a year. It took that long for our son to muster up enough courage to tell us what was happening. (Molesters are very good at scaring children into not telling.) Our son was never a "huggy" child. When he was born, he had a huge "personal space bubble". We worked with him, and it made me so happy that by the time he was 3 years old, he would finally just come up and spontaneously give me a hug around the neck. Then, just after his 4th birthday, he mysteriously stopped wanting to be touched. It broke my heart that he regressed like this, but I had just recently read a book that said that 4-yr-olds were "little monsters" (basically), so being an unexperienced first-time mom, I figured his sudden change in behavior was due to turning 4. If I had been a more experienced mom, I would have realized that the change in behavior should not have been so sudden. When he was just past his 5th birthday, he told me what was happening. Of course, we never used that babysitter again (reported her to the police, etc, etc), and took our son for counseling. Due to the molestation, our son could not tolerate any touching. Hugs made him panic. We did not want him to lose all touch, so we privately explained to grandparents, aunts and uncles, that our son could not handle hugs good-bye when visiting. We asked our son if he could handle a handshake. He agreed to try. It was difficult for him--you could see it in his eyes--but he tried to live up to our compromise agreement about touching. Everyone gave him a handshake when it was time to part. Even us, his parents. He would flinch at a bedtime kiss, even given on the top of his head. (I did it anyway, because *I* needed to. And I hoped he would eventually grow used to it.) He was in high school before he could tolerate a hug good-bye from me, and in college before he willing initiated a hug good-bye. We had to respect how slowly our son could move from the hurt he had experienced. I think when we are working with mothers who have been abused, we need to offer the same respect. Ask the mother if she can hold her baby on her chest. Some can't. Some can barely tolerate baby's lips on the nipple, and push the rest of baby's body away from their own body once baby is latched on. (Baby is lying on a pillow so there is no touch other than the mouth.) They are doing the best they can at that moment. If not pressured, they may be able--in time--to touch and hold their baby more closely. But you can't push them. Just like we always ask a mother's permission before touching her breast during a consultation, we should always ask her permission before just putting baby on her chest. We might get told NO, and we need to honor that. *********************************************** 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