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From:
vgthorley <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Lactation Information and Discussion <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sun, 7 Aug 2005 07:35:01 +1000
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Both Sherry Weersing and Sara Bernard raised the idea that the 47-year-old Mum could be perimenopausal. Sara wrote:
This case has got me wondering too. I was also thinking about the =
menopause link, in the sense of hormones etc .... Interesting to know how they could possibly affect each other?? Unfortunately there's nothing in the lactation texts =
on this (I should know after the last two months of study! ;-).
Anyone else experience with older breastfeeding women ....
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
I've only encountered one mother who was going through menopause while breastfeeding.  She was one of the Mums in my case series on relactation in mothers of children over 12 months (written under my previous surname, Phillips).  This was the second time she relactated, this time after a 6-week gap with a 3-year-old, who then went on to breastfeed for another 2 years, till age 5.  In my case report I wrote: "One this occasion, she noticed a lengthening of her menstrual cycles, with lighter bleeding, followed by secondary infertility and then menopause."  I am not clear about exactly when during the resumption of breastfeeding menopause occurred as I don't think the mother was sure.  From her description, it looks to me like a pretty normal menopause.

    The grandmothers in the case series by Slome in 1956 included at least one who was "past her climacteric", i.e. postmenopausal, but Slome observed that she could express some milk.  (Just to digress for a moment, in both case series women relactated as the result of the child's action at the breast, even where the woman didn't intend to.  Slome's cases were Zulu grandmothers who used the breast to provide comfort to grandchildren while their mothers were at work, and who had been suckled by their own grandmothers as children.  My cases were Anglo-Celtic Australian women, some of whom were reluctant to have the child back at the breast but gave in to the child's insistence.)

    I realise this limited experience doesn't answer the questions raised by Sara.  I suspect there would be more than one answer, with variation between women, both as individuals and in relation to where they are in the gradual process towards menopause.  Numbers are unlikely to be enough for anyone to set up a study of BF in perimenopausal women with enough statistical power to be useful.  So we may have to rely on single cases.  Here are the references for both papers:

Phillips V. Relactation in mothers of children over 12 months. J Trop Pediatr 1993 (Feb);39: 45-48.
Slome C. Non-puerperal lactation in grandmothers. J Pediatr 1956;49:550.

Virginia
in sunny Brisbane, Queensland, Australia

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