Can someone please give me some advice about latching on?

[ClaireVerityIsAWitch]

I'm a student m/w and one of my postnatal women is back at home today (day 4) and struggling. I spent well over an hour with her today and still couldn't get baby latched on, am going back tomorrow and want to help her as best as I can.

She says that baby was feeding ok in hospital, although reading her notes it does seem like baby was struggling to latch on.

At first I thought the problem was due to the fact her milks come in and breast are engorged. So showed her how to hand express some off, baby still won't latch on. Problem is that baby is putting his tongue up all the time. Is there anything we can do to encorage him to put his tongue down????

I tried him in all sorts of positions (rugby ball, lieing dowm, cradle, sitting up, on top of mum). No luck. I'm normally hands off, but admit that with mum's consent was hands on in an attempt to get the nipple over the tongue. My mentor was as stuck as me and tommorrow I'm going back by myself.

We fed baby some of the expressed milk by spoon. My mentor sent the dad out for nipple shields in the hope that that might encourage better sucking/latching on from the baby. I felt bad leaving her without any success. But the mum says she feels happier now she knows how to express - at least she can spoonfeed through the night. I really don't want her to give up and am worried she might. Advised her to have lots of snuggly skin to skin with the baby today in the hope he may latch on by himself.

What else can I tell her? I know there's so many people here with very good knowledge.

thanks.

anyone?

i'm not in a position to advise really but
BUMP

ps, love the name!

Has the baby been checked for tongue tie?

I'm sure I'm teaching my grandmother to suck eggs here, but when I had problems with engorgement, lovely MW on the labour ward phone advised me to feed DS2 some expressed milk so that he wasn't so desperate, then to rub expressed milk on my nipples to give him the idea, and it did help to get feeding established (so bleedin established that he's still at it nearly three years later).

However, given your job I'm guessing you've already tried this. So please just treat this as a very wordy bump.

Skin-to-skin contact is good - so stripping off the baby down to nappy is effective. Also, hold the baby really close - a lot of mums try to breastfeed holding the baby at an angle from mum, but it is much easier to have the baby parallel to mum (and touching).

Using the reflex actions of newborns is important too - stroking the cheek and chin should lead to the baby turning to the breast and opening wide.

Hunker - my mentor was looking for a tongue tie and said she couldn't see anything.

We tried all the reflex actions, mum is holding baby well. We have spoonfed so baby isn't as desperate and also rubed some milk on the nipples. Thanks for the advice though.

I read last night about getting mum to let baby suck on her little finger (when not hungry) to encourae him to put his tongue down. Will ask my mentor if she thinks this is ok before I go back. Thanks

You could try having the mum lay in a reclined position - not quite laying on her back, but leaning quite far back. With no top on. Then put the baby on her chest so baby is on its tummy. Baby will spend some time sort of "bobbing" about near the breast/nipple. In many cases, the baby will then self latch.

You can find out more about this method of "biological nurturing" here:

www.biologicalnurturing.com/pdf/Poster%20for%20web%20site-locked.pdf

Had the same problem and nipple shields helped DS get the hang of it because they were basically longer than my nipples and easier for him to keep hold of in his mouth. Once he got the hang of it (took about a month or more tbh) I stopped using them and was BFing for all of his first year.

I had a similar problem when I got started and eventually got baby latched on at 3am with the help of OH. Basically my milk had come in and even with vigorous expressing my areolas were swollen and there wasn't enough nipple getting into baby's mouth for his tongue to lie flat. He's also got a bit of tongue tie which didn't help. Eventually OH pinched one side of the areola while I held baby and pinched the other side so it kind of lifted the nipple up and gave LO something to get into his mouth IYSWIM. Took ages and needed further support from MW but helped loads. I still do this now if my breasts are very full.

Thanks everyone.

Went to see her today and she was bottle feeding but keen to try again. Took some time but eventually baby was latched on and fed for ages. Fingers crossed.