Hi, Oh Wise Ones:  I have some questions arising from a situation today
where a mother who has been breastfeeding on demand, apparently well, for
one day, told me that she has "no milk".  When I asked her why, she said
"I get nothing when I squeeze".  Of course I reassured her, telling her
that baby gets colostrum even if she can't squeeze any, and it seemed
that baby was doing well by voids and stools (although there had been one
bottle of formula the previous night, so the output wasn't strictly from
breastfeeding).  I've heard that some mothers can't hand express
colostrum, but I also tried (I told her ahead of time that it wouldn't
mean anything if I couldn't get any either, but secretly I was hoping to
reassure her by expressing a few drops with proper technique), and I got
zippo.  I encouraged her to continue frequent on demand nursing and will
follow stools and voids, but here are my questions:
        1. How often do you see moms who can't get even a drop of
colostrum in the first day or so?
        2. When this occurs, is it usually temporary or is it sometimes a
sign of some problem with milk supply?
        3. What would you do if you had a baby who wasn't latching well
and you planned to spoon feed some hand expressed colostrum but
encountered this sort of situation?

TIA, Alicia Dermer, MD, IBCLC.