Tina: Please refer this mother NOW to an Occupational Therapist! There is so much that the therapist could help her with. OTs focus on helping a person maximize their abilities within their particular lifestyle. Most of you know that my daughter graduated with her Doctorate in Occupational Therapy last year (I unashamedly brag about her, much to her embarrassment!), so I have become much more aware of how an OT can help in any life situation. My daughter and I were just talking about the subject of parents (mothers or fathers) with disabilities and she was telling me that this is an untapped area - there's not a lot of attention or research being done. I was asked by one of her professors at Washington University, St. Louis to teach the lab session on parents with disabilities when I went down to hear Rachel present her dissertation last spring. Wash U. is one of the few schools to include parents with disabilities in their curriculum. I think I learned as much as the 1st year students did. They were shown a video of a mother with severe CP (Cerebral Palsy) diapering her 5 month old baby. It took the mother almost 15 minutes, but it was wonderful to see the co-operation and interaction between the mother and her baby. And the mother did it herself with no assistance. The students were very interested in this area and all of them told me that hadn't even thought about how a parent with disabilities is able to care for a baby/young child. There was another video showing how parents managed with toddlers or preschoolers. If you are going to be involved in the care of this mother and her baby, it would be a wonderful learning experience to go with this mother to see the therapist, if the mom is agreeable. Good Luck with this mom. Pam Hirsch, RN,BSN,IBCLC 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