>Then why is it that a mother who is pumping for her baby while she is
>employed must leave more and more milk in the bottles?  Is this happening
>because someone believes it should happen?  Or is it all so different when
>it doesn't come from the breast? And what of that formula of 2.5 times the
>infant's weight as a guide for how much milk to leave?

Ah, now there are some interesting questions - which I admit I do not know
the answers to! I was as surprised as the rest of you when the data from
this study was presented by Peter Hartmann in a talk I was at. He was
actually discussing their findings re the prolactin levels, etc and I just
happened to notice on his graphs that the overall amount of milk taken over
the months 1-6 was very consistent. I even asked a question at the end
about this. These babies were all thriving, fully-breastfed babies feeding
directly from the breast. I think Peter said something about not knowing a
lot about what was happening during 'growth spurts' (because they haven't
studied this specifically), but that his data in this regard was what they
expected. In the paper I quoted yesterday (Cox et al) it says that others
have found consistent milk production over 1 to 6 months (although these
other studies had not looked at the prolactin levels). They quote figures
from:

Neville et al, 1988. 'Studies in human lactation: Milk volumes in lactatin
women during the onset of lactation andfull lactation.' Am J Clin Nutr 48:
1375-1386

Dewey & Lonnerdal, 1983. 'Milk and nutrient intake of breast-fed infants
from 1 to 6 months: Relation to growth and fatness.' J Ped Gastroenterol
Nutr 2:497-506

Now these are not very recent, so why have we not heard more about this
before? I am as intrigued as the next as to what the real story is here.


******************************************************************
Joy Anderson B.Sc. Dip.Ed. Grad.Dip.Med.Tech. IBCLC
Nursing Mothers' Association of Australia Breastfeeding Counsellor
Perth, Western Australia.   mailto:[log in to unmask]
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