Dear Friends, My name is Joanne Kondak and I'm an LLL Leader in Port Jervis, NY. I've been lurking for a while and feel I should introduce myself, because I want to respond to Robin's post. I've been a LLLeader since 1994. I'm married to Charlie and I have three beautiful, breastfed children: Jessica(6 1/2), Jeremy(5), and Zachary(2 1/2). I'm really enjoying the posts here and the information I'm learning. Robin, I'm only talking from my own personal experience here, but some of these things sound familiar. My son Zachary had pathological jaundice. They did first transfusion when bili was at 28. It went down a little, but then started going back up after a day, so they did another. In the meantime, they were trying to talk me into giving him formula and/or water. Both seemed rediculous to me, so I hit them with a bunch of facts. They stopped pressuring me. To make a long story short, he had ABO incompatability. From what I understand, it had something to do with the fact that I hemmorraged with my previous birth due to placenta previa, which resulted in a c-section 6 weeks early. It had something to do with anti-bodies fighting off his blood cells like a virus. (I'm no doctor, so this is how I understood it.) He never got a drop of formula, nor water, but I pumped ALOT to get my milk to come in, so that when he could nurse (he needed an empty stomach for the transfusions) there would be milk for him. My nipples were sore, cracked and bleeding. Before and after I pumped, I would lay warm to hot towels on my breasts. Then I would soak my nipples in warm to hot salt water. (Something my first, now retired LLLL told me.) While soaking, I would gently compress/express milk into the water. Then, after soaking, I would coat my nipples with olive oil. Then air out for a while. My nipples were fine in about 2 days of this treatment. All of this might be unrelated, but I just thought I'd share it with you. By the way, Zachary recovered, and was nursing wonderfully! By the time we left (the neonatal unit in a big hospital in New York City) the head neonatologist was asking ME questions about breastfeeding! LLLove, Joanne Kondak, LLLL, Port Jervis, NY [log in to unmask]