>especially within the last 10 years of "thin is in"
>tells me that rapid weight loss does reduce milk supply.
>
>I have 1-2 mothers a month from my "stylish" part of town whose milk
>supplies plummet when they restrict calories and work out excessively at
>the gym in order to get back into their size 6 clothes. With a resumtion of
>caloric intake they regain their supplies.


I see mothers who diet and work out a lot, too, and they sometimes
ask about failing supply.

In discussion, I find they are simply not feeding the baby often
enough - they're supplementing or scheduling or topping up. This
often co-incides with the visits to the gym, a wish to return to a
'normal' life, a desire to sleep through the night, a return to
work....

It's 'lifestyle' that causes the failing supply, with its effect on
breastfeeding, and I would suspect this far more than the diet and
weight loss....though I think we still have a lot to learn about all
of this.

The mother in the original post is giving 50 per cent of the feeds as
formula at age three weeks - no wonder her supply is dropping.

>
>If a population has adapted to a limited caloric diet and women conceive
>and carry their infants to term, their metabolism is adapted to provide for
>their infants. But a population that has a bountiful supply of available
>calories and that encourages pregnant women to eat well does not prepare a
>mother's body for severe caloric restriction.


Is this right? We have only had bountiful food supplies in the West
for a relatively short time in human race terms - is it long enough
to affect the way our metabolism works?  I have heard many times that
we have *not* adapted (or not adapated healthily) to bountiful food
supplies...hence the epidemic of obesity in the West. The recent
studies on breastfeeding and diet were done in the West, too.

There may, however,  be a spectrum - excessively rapid weight
loss/dramatic calorie restriction to starvation levels might have an
impact on individual women....and I certainly don't dismiss what
mothers and other bf supporters tell me they observe.

But where the baby is already having formula, then that's my Suspect
Number One when it comes to failing supply.

Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc Newcastle upon Tyne UK

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