>I lost *a lot* of feeling in my
>breasts. In fact, I can pinch my breasts as hard as I can and not feel the
>pinch. It's almost like the feeling I have around my cesarean
>incision-numb. I decided to mention this because I think perhaps it's
>relevant.

Yow.  She may be right.  Actually, this plugs into a thought I had the
other day.  If using syntocinon long-term isn't an option because the body
builds a tolerance for it, could a woman use a *scent* along with it?  Like
maybe vanilla.  Could she condition her milk to let down to the scent of
vanilla?  So that she could gradually phase out the syntocinon and keep
sniffing vanilla?  And maybe, with time, just the sight and sound of the
baby nursing would do it??  Just wondering.

I suppose a starting point for this mom would be to determine if inducing a
let-down prompts better intake by her baby.

One woman who couldn't let down following a death in the family found that
she could stimulate a let-down by rubbing her spine up and down a
doorframe.  Knuckle-rubs on her spine did it too, but of course that
involved another person, so she devised this way of doing it herself.

The knuckle-rub description I've heard is:  have the woman sit at a table,
arms crossed on the table, head on her arms, breasts hanging free.  Using
the knuckles of both hands, rub briskly up and down on either side of the
spine over the section of spine between the shoulder blades.

I've used it only once w/ a woman who couldn't seem to let down.  She
couldn't *sit* down, either, because of hemorrhoids, so we did it at the
kitchen counter.  Lo and behold, she made puddles of milk on the floor...

Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC, LLLL  Ithaca, NY