Anne K. said, >I suggested she sit up in a kitchen chair >to latch for a day, sitting up straight to lengthen her waist and thus bring >baby closer. I'm sure others of you have found to be the case, too, that a mother's total body position affects her comfort and success at a given feeding. Last week I worked with a mother who was experiencing very sore nipples. I checked baby's latch and it looked good, as did his body alignment, and the feeding went great, with no pain. Mom was on the couch, with pillows for some support. I asked her where she had been feeding and she pointed out a chair with arms. We talked about the importance of her and her baby's body position. Later she called and said that after a day of no discomfort she tried the chair again and had much pain. She noticed that the arms of the chair raised her own arms and that baby's neck was bent up. The couch is the feeding scene for this mom. One reason that I like my home visit practice is that I can see such things as this. Once I was working with a mom who said that when I was there all went well and when I wasn't the feedings were painful. I know some of this is the "cheerleader effect", but I asked her where she was feeding when alone, and she said, "Upstairs in the bedroom." The chair up there was an heirloom rocker, which proved to be the problem. I assured her that, in time, the family would be properly honored by her feeding her baby in the heirloom rocker, but during this learning time other sites would be of benefit. I returned to help her feed in the side-lying position for the night-time feeds. On this note, it is my impression that in cultures where there isn't a lot of specific furniture, all mothers feed lying down at first. Why do American women have so much trouble learning to feed lying down? Is it that those first feeds are sitting up, either on hospital beds (ACK!) or in chairs? Or is part of it a carry-over from bottles, which is the internal picture that women have of feeding? Or is it that they haven't seen women feeding lying down and their bodies haven't taken in that experience? I have read that just watching women feed their babies at breast will inform my body of the sublties of the process--sort of like "The Inner Game of Tennis", etc. We probably need couches at LLL meetings (WOW!) or in our LC offices where women can watch others feed lying down. ( Maybe the LC can lie down once in a while too.) Of course, what we really need is everyone breastfeeding so that a zillion positions can be observed by our bodies. Then we could focus on the rare problems that make feeding a challenge. Patricia Gima, IBCLC Milwaukee mailto:[log in to unmask]