Jennifer you wrote, "I am not convinced that clicking as a sign of
compensatory behaviour is something to ignore, even though the mother is
experiencing no pain and the baby is growing well. (Some of these babies also
seem to grow too well, and in light of the recent literature on rapid weight
gain infancy and obesity, I wonder if this is a good thing)."

I am not exactly sure what you mean by this comment.  I would like to add
another idea to this discussion. We have no studies that I know of that show
that "exclusive" breastfeeding contributes to a rapid weight gain in infancy
that causes obesity.  In fact I would say that the evidence points directly
away from "exclusive" breastfeeding as a link to obesity.  Most women in the
US do not exclusive breastfeed their infants, thus I suspect that obesity has
more of a relationship between formula feeding or mothers that do both
formula feeding and breastfeeding.  It also has a relationship to foods that
are introduced to babies (how quickly and how much).

A personal example is my middle child, who was exclusively breastfeed,
clicked all the time nursing--even as a toddler nursing.  She gained weight
rapidly as an infant.  I had people tell me to put her on a diet.  I don't
know how you put an exclusively breastfed infant on a diet.  She is now close
to 6 foot tall and not fat and certainly not obese.  I know other exclusively
breastfeed infant who were quite rolly-polly as infants but are now slender
young adults or teens. We have no research that shows us that exclusively
breastfed infants become obese.  The problem is that in the USA most infants
are either bottlefed or given mixed feedings.(breast and bottle)  Thus
infants are not determining their own feeds and thus can easily be overfed.
Valerie W. McClain, IBCLC

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