>Which, when you think about it, makes sense. Baby suckles, Mom has a
>number of let-downs during the feed which increase fat content. Baby stops
>when full. So where does the fat in the milk inside the breast go? Disappear?
> Crawl back up to the myeopeithelium and get in line again? Or hang around
>waiting for the next time of release? Which can be in the first milk at the
>next time baby suckles.

My understanding is that the fat is difficult to dislodge, and doesn't come
off until all the lower-fat milk has been removed from the breast.  If the
baby continues to suckle, then the fat dislodges and comes out, making the
milk higher-fat.  If the baby stops early, then the breast begins re-filling
with lower fat milk and the next time the baby comes to nurse, he has to
remove the low-fat milk again before he can get to the higher fat milk.

I think the balloon analogy I used before went something like this.  Imagine
a sticky wall -- cover it with pink balloons (high fat), then attach yellow
balloons over top of the pink balloons.  When the baby comes, he has to
remove all the yellow balloons before he can have a pink balloon.  If he
works steadily, he can take off all the yellows and then get some pinks.
Sometimes he stops before the yellow balloons are all gone, or even he gets
all the yellows and only a few pinks before he falls asleep.  While he is
sleeping, his mother comes in and puts up more yellow balloons on top of the
pink ones.  When the baby wakes up again, he has to start all over taking
down yellow balloons before he can get to the pink ones.  If he isn't
allowed to work very long at taking down the yellow ones, then he *never*
gets to the pink ones.

Another analogy is to soak a sponge in a mixture of oil and water.  Then
start to slowly squeeze the sponge, and the water comes out first.  You can
only get the oil out if you keep squeezing once all the water is out.  If
you put the sponge back in water too soon, then you have to squeeze all the
water out again before you can get any oil out.

So how do babies that nurse 4 times an hour get the fat they need?  The more
frequent the nursing, the higher the fat content of all the milk.

Kathy Dettwyler

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