There is a wonderful short article on the subject:  Wang,Y. et at.
 Preliminary Study of the Blood Glucose Level in the Exclusively Breastfed
Newborn. J Top Peds, 1994,40:187-88.

  30 infants and 30 controls had blood drawn from heels at 4 hrs after birth
to observe fasting glucose levels.  Levels were re-checked at 12, 24, and 48
hrs yielding 240 blood samples.  These were assessed in the exclusively bfed
infants and in the formula fed controls. " There was no significant
difference in the basic blood glucose levels as well as the subsequent three
tests. (P>0.05).  Low blood glucose level was found on three occasions in
each group, an incidence of 2.5%, but clinically neither symptoms nor signs
of hypoglycemia were observed." also " After birth, most of the normal
newborns undergo a physiological process of decrease in blood glucose level,
but they soon adapt themselves to the extra-uterine environment and regain
their normal blood glucose level." This is done by feeding.

The mean decrement in birth weight was more marked in the breast than in
formula fed infants, however weight increase started slightly earier and
total weight gain by the 6th day pp was higher than in the bfed babies. The
average time to regain birth wt in this study was observed to be 9.36 days in
the bfed and 9.44 days in formula fed babies.

An interesting nugget from this article is the info on the capacity of the
newborn stomach after birth "... very small in the first 2 days.  In a 3 kg
baby, for ex., the average physiological capacity of the stomach is 6 ml on
the first day and 12 ml on the second day after birth, while the average
volume of mother's colostrum is 25-56 ml on the first day and 113-185 ml on
the second day."  Nice match, I'd say.
Barbara Wilson-Clay, BSE, IBCLC
priv. pract. Austin, Tx