>>I have received a telephonic S.O.S. from a friend and client who, for the
third time, had lots and lots of milk, and now suddenly does not.  With each
of her three babies, she initially produced enough milk to feed the
neighborhoods, then between three and months, suddenly had a significant dip
in supply.<<

Debi,
I worked online (across the country) with one mother extensively who had
this very thing happen also. Did everything right, most especially on times
2, 3 and 4, yet had the same supply dropout until #4. No difference in
management.

We had suspected that it was hormonal-- her period would return
concurrently. All the usual lactogenic herbs did not make a difference.
Reglan helped her, but she developed depression and had to be taken back off
of it. Domperidone was not a viable option at the time, so her pediatrician
recommended thorazine, which did work but had major side-effects.

Child number 4 was a pleasant anomaly. The only thing the mother can
speculate on is that this baby may suck better than the other three, raising
a question of whether there were subtle issues of hypotonia or suck problems
with the other children. It could even be a baby being a very passive
recipient of a strong milk flow, living off the flood but not really
stimulating the breast in turn very well, causing a drop-off similar to
scheduling situations (3-4 mos is classic).

I would encourage checking prolactin and thyroid, and then starting on a
prescriptive galactogogue. We need some thorough evaluations of such
mothers!

Lisa Marasco MA IBCLC

             ***********************************************
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