I believe the situation mentioned is when mother and baby are separated at birth because of baby's condition. There shouldn't be any reason that a normal mother/baby dyad would need to be pumping. When I was an LC back in mid 80's we made it a policy that if baby had no access to mom, then pumping needed to start in first 12 hours. And sometimes it is mom who is incapacitated, not baby, but dad or the nurses can help her preserve breastfeeding by pumping. I liked someone else's idea of getting that colostrum bolus early to save for first tiny feeds when baby is able. The idea of beginning pumping early helps avoid engorgement. It's a real pain if baby finally gets to mom on day 3-4 and has to deal with a huge non elastic overfull breast with flat nipples because of the engorgement. On the pychological side there is the idea that colostrum is precious and we want her baby to get every drop. And she is doing the best she can for her baby off in NICU, where the nurses are doing the care. Only mom can make that precious liquid for her baby. My philosophy for the day :-) Pat in SNJ *********************************************** 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 email list is powered by LISTSERV (R). There is only one LISTSERV. To learn more, visit: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html