I am working on a magazine article about infant crying and wondered if any
of you could help me out. I believe I have heard that initially, breast milk
production is controlled by one set of hormones, and then after a period of
time milk production is controlled by different hormones. Can anyone explain
this to me in a bit more detail, and perhaps provide some references?

I am asking about this because I am developing a theory on crying.
Researchers have noticed that the amount of crying babies do tends to
increase for the first six weeks, then it begins to decrease, and is
generally less by 3 months. My theory is that perhaps this is an
evolutionary thing to maximize the mother's milk production - the baby who
cries more will (in a non-scheduling society) be put to the breast more
often, and this needs to happen frequently in the early weeks to make sure
milk production is well established. There is less "benefit" to the baby to
cry more after the first few months because extra feeding at that point may
not significantly increase milk production if it has not been well
established. I do have a study that showed in one tribal society, the babies
who were described as "fussy or colicky" before the tribe went through a
drought and famine were far more likely to survive the drought than the
babies who had been described as placid and easy-going.

Does this make sense to any of you?

Teresa Pitman
Guelph, Ontario

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