Continuing on the line of breastfeeding and weight gain:

Remember the request I put a while ago about a mom whose weight had gone
terribly low and she was considered to be losing muscle "caused by excessive
milk production"  (she could pump over 17 ounces after feeding her baby - not
because she WANTED to pump, but because if she didn't pump her breasts became
engorged)  per her MD's (intenists and sports MD's)?  Well, she did stop
breastfeeding (baby 8 months old) - we had tried all normal avenues of reducing
milk supply including all recommendations from Lactnetters - and the weight loss
stopped and she is feeling much better and is even gaining some weight.

In the information I share with women who want to breastfeed I explain that her
body has saved extra fats from below the shoulders to the hip area to assure a
good milk supply for baby even if mom suffers from starvation (famine).  This
fat is difficult to mobilize until after the three months, and even with a very
strict diet she has trouble losing weight.  After three months, the body seems
to use these extra fats and it is easier for her to lose weight (thus the report
that bf women have reduced more in  hip size than bottlefeeding moms).  So I
encourage her to eat healthily but not try to lose weight until after three
months.  (This seems to calm the moms and their husbands, causing less stress
between them and less stress on mom in particular.)

My question is, could it be that some moms are "stuck" in one of these two
stages - the mom I was talking to (only telephone calls) was stuck in the "easy
to lose weight" stage with hormones going full tilt in the reduction process,
whereas other moms are "stuck" on the "save the baby and don't lose any fats and
store up for a famine" stage causing continual weight gain.

I realize that nutritionists stress that it's what we eat (more calories than
our bodies need)  that causes weight gain, not "hormones",  but as a middle aged
woman who never had a weight problem and recently began to gain weight despite
no changes in the diet, I'm beginning to wonder...

Jeanette Panchula, BA-SW, LLLL, RN, IBCLC
Puerto Rico - sunny and 80's
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