I don't have research to offer, but did have a patient when I was a resident who had this same situation. She became pregnant again when her firstborn was 5 mos old and had never even seen an artificial nipple. She was adament about exclusive breastfeeding, and did not want to supplement if at all possible. The baby did start some solids at 6 mos. His growth did slow quite a bit in the second 6 mos, and we encouraged high calorie solids. She always felt she was producing some milk, though. She tandem nursed after the pregnancy, and the older baby was very happy to have a lot of milk back and his growth picked right up again. If it had been entirely up to me that baby would have gotten some formula at the end of the pregnancy because his growth basically stopped, but mom did not want to supplement. He subsequently started to gain again after the pregnancy and his milestones were fine, so probably she was right! Amazingly, she got pregnant again while tandem nursing when the new babe was just 3 mos old. In the middle of all these babies, she became a WIC breastfeeding peer counselor, and often sat in our inner city waiting room and chatted up obviously pregnant ladies and encouraged them to breastfeed. I left that clinic when my residency was over, but I recently talked to her when she called to tell me about baby #4 (born 2 years after #3 this time.) She said it's funny when she sees a health care provider who doesn't understand breastfeeding - especially when she's asked when her last period was and she tells them January of 1999. I don't know that I've ever met a more fertile woman! Jennifer Tieman Family Physician Mom to 4, including nursling Caroline Rose born 5/31/03 - and finally crawling! *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html