I don't feel you need to confess. I had a client come to the Breastfeeding Center on Thursday, last week and she had very sore nipples. They were bleeding and looked very painful. We worked with position and upon assessment of the infants palate she of course had a high palate. Everything looked good and the baby has been gaining wt at a good rate. Baby was 5 days old and only 3 oz from birth wt. Mother just kept saying, "I am really hating this. It hurts too much." She was going to stop breastfeeding if it get more comfortable right then. The mother admitted that with help and better positioning the feeding was better, but not good enough for her to keep going. I went to a Medela shield. The next day I made a phone call to her and she said things were much better. She was not dreading feeding the baby like she was before. There was hope that she would continue. She is continuing to use the shield through the weekend. We have a f/u visit tomorrow, Monday, to see about taking the baby off the shield. I believe that you do what you have to sometimes to keep these mom's breastfeeding and I don't apologize for using a shield if it keeps the baby at the breast. This baby would have been on ABM when she walked out the door if not for the shield for just a few days. I do believe there is a place and time for tools that are available to us. Thank you for listening. And good for you Pam. One baby at a time! Darlene Breed, BSN, RN, IBCLC Milk Bank & Breastfeeding Center Worcester, MA (USA) ___________________________________________________________________ Get the Internet just the way you want it. Free software, free e-mail, and free Internet access for a month! Try Juno Web: http://dl.www.juno.com/dynoget/tagj. *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html