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Date: | Tue, 22 Oct 2002 17:32:19 -0400 |
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>Niles & Michael Newton did some very interesting studies on the let down
>reflex. They said, "Emotional disturbances, embarrassment, and pain inhibit
>let-down to the sucking baby, and thus the baby gets little milk."
I haven't read the study (shame on me), but I'm quite sure it's based on a
population of one: Niles herself.
Oxytocin triggers MERs. Stress releases oxytocin. I've seen women
literally writhing in pain from damaged nipples, spraying milk all over. I
let down once for an electrician with whom I was having a dispute over work
not done. I always had the sense that I let down *faster* in stressful
situations than calm ones. Maybe I'm an anomaly... but then, who's to say
Niles wasn't? Surely *many* lactating animals live with very frequent
stress but manage to feed their young.
Many years ago I tried to trace the source of a statement found in almost
every ornithology book - that birds probably dustbathe to suffocate their
parasites. It turns out Pliny the Elder, in the first century CE, watched
some birds dustbathing along the roadside and *speculated idly* that perhaps
the dust smothered their parasites. Nearly 2,000 years later, the same
speculation was being repeated, utterly unsubstantiated but reinforced by
textbook repetitions.
Goodness! I hope we don't do the same thing with stress and MERs...
--
Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC, LLLL Ithaca, NY
www.wiessinger.baka.com
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