Elishiva, you wrote:
I liked Rachel's approach:  She wrote that she tells new mothers,

<<It is possible to have enough milk with less than 6 feeds a day, but it is
exceptional.  If your baby consistently sleeps 4 hours or more between
EVERYmeal, has to be wakened because you are engorged, and falls asleep
after
less than 5 minutes at the breast, GO HAVE IT WEIGHED.  If weight gain is
OK,
you are the winners of that rare baby the old books all described as the
norm, and count your blessings.  If weight gain is lagging, the solution is
obvious-- more frequent feedings.>>

But this leads you back into the numbers loop and the notion that we know
the quantiative limits within which breastfeeding can happen or 'succeed'
(as it is usually described).  Since the errors in actually weighing babies
are legion (and documented) and there are no charts generally available
which acurately chart the growth patterns of breastfed babies and since,
also, research has shown that the ability of health professionals who
actually weigh babies (study done here in UK) to correctly identify
different types of growth patterns is not particuarly accurate......what the
heck does weighing show us?  How would we *know* that the weight gain is
'OK'???????

Magda Sachs
Breastfeeding Supporter, BfN, UK

             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html