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.