Hi Lactnetters, I'm fairly new to this list so I have hesitated putting my .02 in but this topic is so newly close to home I had to. First let me introduce myself. My name is Stacey Bentz. I'm a LLLL in central NJ and a former WIC Peer Counselor (couldn't take the heat, got out of the kitchen). Shanna is my oldest (21), tried to breast feed but was unsuccessful (accidental home birth, 5 hour separation, sugar water and formula bottles, a hospital made pacifier and no instruction on breastfeeding). At two weeks when my nipples had just about fallen off (slight exaggeration) and the Ped had me using the bicycle horn pump (stop cringing) we went with ABM for survival. My second is now 4yo. We experienced some difficulty with nursing due to poor positioning (Everyone told me tummy to tummy, how come they never demonstrated it?). Which brought me to LLL and the rest of that part is history. On November 13th I gave birth to a beautiful baby boy, Johnny. I had done all my research to make this a trauma free birth to make sure bf got off to a good start. I had discussed my birthing plan w/ my CNM and she agreed with all the "wacky" requests I had made. I even went so far as to discuss with our Ped delaying PKU until 2 week c/u. At 41 weeks gest. My midwife decided to help things along with cervadil(sp). Worked Great. I have short labors so 3 hrs after labor started I pushed out a wonderfully big 9.5 baby. For some reason my midwife couldn't get his HB before last push so upon birth was quite eager to "pink" him up. Thinking he wasn't doing well she wisked him across the room (LDR) to the baby cart Where some woman I had never seen before proceeded to shove a tube down his throat while he was held up by his arm pits. Now anyone who has ever given birth knows that immediately after delivery (yes, non-med.) your in what I can only describe as a dream-like state. After what seemed like an eternity I yelled across the room, "IS THAT REALLY NECESSARY?", at which point my midwife went over and told them that was enough. OK I get my baby back (poor little thing) and then they hit me with *heel prick for sugar*. *HURRY UP AND LATCH HIM ON SO HE HAS SOME BM AND THE TEST WILL COME OUT WELL." Needless to say he did not want to latch on. After several attempts my midwife stuffed my BREAST in his mouth and he reluctantly sucked, cried ,sucked. (this is more difficult to tell than I thought it would be) :.< I didn't consent right away to the heel stick but when I did, of course he was fine. Sorry this is so long but that's the history. Three days later when my nipples were about to fall off due to his tongue curling, I rented a pump from one of my wonderful co-Leaders (also INCLUDE) and tried to finger feed him. Not only was he curling his tongue, but he was bunching up the back of his tongue and tightening the back of his mouth as well. It was impossible to get my finger in. I had tried all the proper exercises and nothing was working. We started cup feeding which was suggested due to the fact that it would draw his tongue out. I even went so far as to contact a PT specializing in tongue bunching and jaw clenching. After three weeks of cup feeding we were finally able to get a proper latch and now things are fine. I can't tell you the emotional trauma *I* went through over this. First, as a BF failure (I was on constant watch for the LLL police to come and strip me of my accreditation :-)) and I was wondering if there was something neurologically wrong with my beautiful son. On top of that the ped office kept threatening me with a bottle "he's losing too much weight" (lost 8 oz. and I believe most was water weight due to my elevated BP). Not to mention the ridiculous notion that his suck could only be evaluated with a bottle (what kind of ridiculous criteria is this??? What about a finger, Doc?) Reading these posts on oral trauma have opened my eyes to the fact that the reason he didn't want anything to do with BF was because he had suffered and didn't want a repeat of the torture. Had someone told me that he might be orally sensitive after the deep suctioning (unnecessary, there was nothing wrong with him) I would have been prepared for what we went through. Is that careless Maternity worker going to pay for my pump rental? Does the hospital care that we both suffered physically due to an unnecessary procedure? What about the mom who doesn't have the supports, background and backbone that I have? If I hadn't been in the Breastfeeding *field* I would have given up on day 3 and then proceeded to tell family, friends and anyone else who would listen, how BY hurts and how they should never even try! Sorry so long. I welcome any and all comments. Stacey Bentz, LLLL, Lawrenceville, NJ ___________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com/getjuno.html or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]