Hi again. I think that there may be a slight misunderstanding of my
message yesterday regarding hypothyroidism. To repeat, it has been
reported that 10% of postpartum women have hypothyroidism. The fact that
my reference for this figure is a psychiatric textbook is not relevant to
my posting it to Lactnet. I posted it since I was quite surprised that the
figure was so high. I should think that it behooves us to keep this
significant figure in mind when looking for the etiology of "low milk
supply" with our clients/patients. More and more frequently, when I hear
complaints of low milk supply, I ask my ladies questions specifically
directed toward thyroid dysfunction, and urge them to try and persuade
their physician to send them for TSH, T3, T4. I am fairly certain that if
physicians were aware of this 10% postpartum hypothyroidism phenomenon,
they themselves would more readily send their patients for this simple
blood test.
Once again, I am *not* really "back", I'm still nomail, so please mail
comments to me privately.
BTW, I did find a couple of studies linking bottle feeding with postpartum
depression, but only read the abstracts, we don't have those journals in
our medical library, and this correlation is not the main thrust of my
course paper......If anyone is interested in the exact reference, please
post me privately and I'll send.
Best regards,
Judy Knopf in Beer Sheva, Israel
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