Hi Anne
It worries me that your friend is looking to breastfeeding for an
explanation of her path results. I know that this is hard for us in the
'developed' world to get our heads around but: lactation is the physiologic
state for women of childbearing age. It is not responsible for
pathogologies. (It is biologically abnormal for a woman of childbearing
years to be neither pregnant nor breastfeeding and having monthly menses for
years on end.)
I would be looking at mother's diet (SAD?), lifestyle (excercise?) and other
more ordinary causes. If she and her medical advisers look to breastfeeding
as the issue here, they risk missing the real cause.
Cheers
Nina Berry
Australia
-----Original Message-----
From: Lactation Information and Discussion
[mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Anne Grider
Sent: Saturday, February 09, 2008 12:52 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Polycythemia and Vit.D in mother -help needed
Dear Lactnetters,
I received an e-mail from a former client today. Her baby is 14 months old.
Not interested in solids. I have permission to post the following from her.
Any information on polycythemia and Vitamin D levels in breastfeeding mother
would be appreciated. We live in sunny Georgia, USA.
I* have a couple of nursing questions for you because of some recent lab
results of mine. I was checked for hypothyroidism (which I don't have,
thyroid is fine), so the endocrinologist ran a full blood panel. I had two
interesting results.*
* *
*1. The doctor says I have mild polycythemia, which means that my red blood
cell counts were high. It can be caused by dehydration, but could also be
caused by other scarier conditions. I'm probably producing about 40 ounces
of milk per day for my boy-who-won't-eat, so it wouldn't be surprising if I
weren't drinking enough water to support that. I'll be intentionally
drinking more water and then will have my red blood cells checked again to
see if dehydration is what was causing the polycythemia. My question is:
have you ever heard of this among women who are exclusively nursing a heavy
baby, so producing a lot of milk?
2. Also, my vitamin D was very low: 12.4 ng/mL (healthy range is
32.0-100.0).
He gave me a prescription for ergocalciferol, to take one tablet weekly for
eight weeks. Then he wants me to take an OTC vitamin D supplement of 1,000
IU daily. I am pretty alarmed that my D is so low. My prenatal vitamin
provides 100% of the RDA (400 IU) and only about 15 minutes of sun exposure
is required to provide 100% of the RDA, plus I do drink milk, so why is my D
abysmally low? I'm wondering if John's D needs are sucking me dry? But maybe
that doesn't make sense because very little D makes it into breast milk,
which is why exclusively breastfed babies are often advised to take a D
supplement. Do you think there is any nursing connection?*
**
Thank you,
Anne Grider, IBCLC
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