Hi Alison,
Interesting idea. I have not heard of TENS being used to provide nipple
stimulation but I think that it would be worth looking at. My daughter is
just about to start TES (Therapeutic Electrical Stimulation) at night to
help improve blood flow to her injured arm and increase the size of the
muscle fibres that have nerve connections; she has a quite severe brachial
plexus injury affecting her right arm and hand. TES provides a higher level
of e-stim than TENS I believe but if TENS increased blood flow to the breast
also it could not but help. If it also provided stimulation that increased
prolactin levels it might be useful early in relactation/induced lactation
but once there was milk being produced, milk removal would be more important
in increasing milk supply, alone it would not do that much I suspect. So it
could be a useful adjunct but would not replace the basics.

I remain fairly wary of "technology" (meaning drugs, pumps etc) when it
comes relactation/induced lactation because it seems to me that women often
latch onto these new things as what they need, sometimes at the expense of
what is really necessary (ie to remain in close contact with their baby and
breastfeed frequently). I don't think it is helpful to breastfeeding in
general for women to believe that they need "stuff" in order to breastfeed.
That's not to say that it could not be a useful tool and would perhaps have
a wider relevence to all women with supply problems that cannot be overcome
by the usual means. If you have a go, please let us know how it goes.

I would also be interested in the thoughts of others.

Karleen Gribble
Australia

>
> G'day!
> I have been  pondering the role of nipple stimulation in both prolactin
> and oxytocin release and was just wondering whether anyone has ever
> tried TENS (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation) to get
> breastfeeding  going or augment what is already happening naturally.
>

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