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- Cleft Palate
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Infants with a cleft palate may have difficulty breastfeeding
depending on the size of the cleft.
The cleft makes it difficult to get suction on the nipple.
Some mothers can use their breast to fill the cleft
and allow the infant to nurse.
Some mothers have been able to express breast milk and feed it to the baby
via the bottle.
These babies require close monitoring of their growth.
- Cleft Lip
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Infants with cleft lip without a cleft palate can breast feed very
well (
Weatherley-White, 1987
).
- Down's Syndrome
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Infants with Down's Syndrome often have a poor suck and hypotonia.
They may have difficulty stimulating the maternal breast enough in
order to get the milk supply up. Consequently, they may need some
supplemental feedings in a physiologic manner. The mothers may need
to use an electric pump to empty and stimulate their breasts which
will then increase their milk supply while their baby is learning to
breastfeed. These babies need close monitoring of their weight gain.
- Congenital heart disease
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Infants with congenital heart disease who are able to suck from a
bottle should be able to suck from the breast.
- Other congenital problems
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Infants with other problems need to be addressed on an individual basis.
Health care personnel who are skilled at helping mothers with
breastfeeding should be involved with the physician caring for these infants.
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