Hello, All.
   OK, I'm a bit confused.  I feel like I must be missing something obvious, but I just can't figure it out.  There has been a lot of talk on Lactnet about telling moms in shelters to relactate by just putting baby to breast.  And it has been suggested that those mothers who already are nursing a baby offer to wet nurse another baby who is hungry.
    I have worked with relactating moms.  It takes a while to rebuild a full supply.  Although a mother with a four-week old still might have high enough hormone levels to relactate fully, there is no guarantee.  More importantly, that four-week-old without formula will be *hungry* and mom won't have enough milk to feed him for *at least* several days, and may not ever have enough milk to fill him up.  
    Some breastfeeding mothers do make plenty of breastmilk, and could indeed feed triplets even though they only have one baby.  But that is not the majority of moms.  If we ask the mother of a fully-breastfed 6-week-old, whose supply has regulated to her baby's needs, to wet nurse another hungry baby, it will again take at least a few days for her supply to increase, and it may not happen.  But even if her supply does eventually increase, is it right for her own baby to be hungry because another mother does not have nearly enough milk because she just started to try to relactate?  I don't think so.
   Maybe I'm missing something here, but the posts I'm reading seem to indicate that formula can be avoided by just having moms put baby to breast, even if they aren't currently breastfeeding.  And her breastfeeding neighbor can help her while her supply is non-existent or low by just wet-nursing in addition to caring for her own baby.  It seems to me that we are going to have some mighty hungry babies for at least several days, if we tell these moms that they can skip formula just by doing this.
    Please explain what I am missing.  Thank you.
    Dee Kassing

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