The human story has been one crisis after another, and women must have
breastfed through them all. And hopefully the activity comforted the
whole team. So the doctor speculating that stress caused flavor changes
that disrupted the baby's feeding doesn't make much evolutionary sense.
(Hmm, could other authority figures be making weird medical
speculations?......)
But many parents have dealt with what Liz called "head scratching
changes in a baby's behavior" (about feeding and other things too).
Perhaps the COVID-19 stress is a factor -- perhaps this parent is too
agitated to sit down and feed in the usual way, maybe she's also trying
to deal with cooped-up older children, delaying feeds with a pacifier
while desperately trying to work remotely, etc. Sometimes we can figure
out the reason for the "nursing strike" (sometimes involving a perfect
storm of combined circumstances, including a baby's new awareness), and
sometimes it remains a mystery. Since we can't *make* another person
do something, the mother needs lots of ideas on ways to woo a baby back
gently from a "nursing strike." And point out that the phenomenon
wouldn't have a semi-scientific name if there hadn't already been plenty
of other families who suddenly had to deal their baby upset and not
feeding. (And it's important to protect the supply -- it's easier to
woo a baby back if they are rewarded with milk).
But a lot of babies (and dogs) seem very pleased to have everyone at
home for by this terrible, disruptive lockdown. How often have we told
new parents to create a "babymoon" time -- filling the house with food,
floating with the baby's schedule, sleeping when the baby sleeps,
limiting visitors and other obligations, etc. -- and hey, that's now
been enforced! It's hard when families can't get breastfeeding help as
easily when they need it (and we've all had a fast learning curve on
helping remotely). But giving a new family time and space to figure out
their own ways may be a help.
I don't do much with Facebook, but someone shared this anecdotal musing
by a British midwife that babies seem to be getting back to birthweight
faster during the lockdown.
https://www.facebook.com/101289521328999/posts/170371121087505/?d=n
Good luck to us all.
Margaret Wills, IBCLC Maryland, USA
> Date: Fri, 24 Apr 2020 06:37:18 -0400
> From: Elizabeth Brooks <[log in to unmask]>
> Subject: Re: Cortisol and taste of breastmilk?
>
> Hmm. It seems ludicrous to me that increased cortisol in the parent would
> change the **flavor** of the milk, causing Baby to not feed well.
>
> I did a little poking around and was surprised to see this study that says
> "Cortisol level post stress [test] predicted reduced intensity of salt and
> sour, suggesting that stress-related changes in adrenocortical activity
> were related to reduced taste intensity."
> https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3240721/ [Published in final
> edited form as: Psychophysiology. 2012 Jan; 49(1): 96–103.
> <https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/eutils/elink.fcgi?dbfrom=pubmed&retmode=ref&cmd=prlinks&id=22091733>
> ]
>
> All of which is to say: high cortisol may impact **the parent's**
> taste/smell skills, especially if they are stressed about COVID. But I'm
> willing to bet the Bub is happily snuggled in parent's arms and clueless
> about COVID.
>
> If your suggested approaches to increasing direct feeding interest are
> already paying off, I'd venture that it wasn't the taste of the milk, and
> it wasn't cortisol, but was just one of those head-scratching changes in
> baby behaviors. You don't mention the baby's age, which changes what we
> scratch our heads about, but if you can (and if warranted given the baby's
> age) this might be worth a weighted-feed follow-up
>
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