>#1 I am amazed that the fact that the woman breastfed her first child would
>not be taken into consideration as part of the surgical planning of how to
>reduce breast size and still preserve the ability to lactate in future.
>
>Once again this is an example of how little consideration that breastfeeding
>gets outside of the maternal world of OBs, Peds, LCs and the like. It keeps
>bringing back to me just how much work has to be done. Obviously the subject
>never even came up in the pre-surgical preparation and the mother did not
>know enough about lactation to inquire about it until it was too late.

Another possibility is that at the time of the surgery, the mother had no
intentions of having any more children, therefore the future lactation
potential of her breasts was a moot point.  I had a lumpectomy in 1986 or
'87 and the surgeon did a radial, peri-areolar incision to "minimize the
appearance of the scar".  At the time, I was 100% sure I was not having any
more children, so I didn't care that milk ducts would be severed.  But
then, of course, I did have another child, in 1991 -- and that breast
didn't work as well.  But it did produce some milk, and the other one
worked just fine.



----------------------------------------------------------------------------
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Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D.                         email:
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Anthropology Department                               phone: (409) 845-5256
Texas A&M University                                    fax: (409) 845-4070
College Station, TX  77843-4352
http://www.prairienet.org/laleche/dettwyler.html

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