>If it were not true that just stimulating the breasts without actually
>removing milk "told" the breasts to make more, how would a mom relactate
>after weaning or induce a milk supply for an adopted baby?  When a mom is
>starting with "nothing" as in an adoptive situation, we all know that milk
>will eventually be produced just by pumping and/or the baby suckling at the
>breast with a supplementer.  I couldn't explain the physiology behind it,
>but in the beginning, no milk is being removed, yet done often enough, milk
>appears.

Oooh, here's a thought:

In a non-lactating woman, any existing ducts/alveoli aren't air-filled.  I
know I can hand express tiny drops from either side, nearly 2 decades after
lactating, if I work at it.  I don't get a drop on the first go; I have to
work at it.  Once I've gotten that first drop, I can get a few small
subsequent drops more easily.

Might I get still more, even more easily, if I tried again a couple hours
later?

Maybe what the adoptive mom does in those early weeks with her pump is to
slowly gather the minuscule amount of existing ductile/alveolar fluid, to
the point where she actually begins to get some out.  Once she's shifting
fluid from higher up to lower down, even before it escapes the nipple, she
really is doing "milk removal", from an alveolar perspective, however tiny
the quantity.  And maybe from that point, those alveoli respond by replacing
what she removes.  Could she speed the whole induction process by several
weeks if she used fairly aggressive hand expression at the start, until a
pump could get drops out as well as she could?

Dang!  This is why I get behind on lactnet.  Can't keep from interacting...
--
Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC  Ithaca, NY
www.wiessinger.baka.com

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