I agree with Cathy that, if the sole nutrition of this child is breast
milk then one would make different suggestions and possibly include an
SNS.  And Carol is right that I should not have made the generalization
that most women nursing children(3 yrs and up) don't have great milk
supplies.  I would imagine that there will be women who have tremendous
milk supplies all the way to those who have very little.  I should not
have taken my experience and generalized it.

But I think more questions need to be asked of this woman who had the
low milk supply.  Does this child eat foods?  How often(previous to the
mother's hospitalization)did this child nurse?  What does the mother do
when the child wakes up in the middle of the night to nurse and cries
because there is "nothing there?"  I would be interested in the mother's
reasoning for deciding that she only wants to nurse 6 more months.

I certainly think a mother should know her options--pumping, sns,
drugs.  But she should also know the drawbacks to this approach.  The
cost of an sns, the drugs, a pump(altho she already stated she had a
pump--was it a good one?..we don't know) would be high for some moms.  I
live in a low-income area and money is an important consideration.  If
these devices don't work for her(and she has already stated that pumping
is not working), it will be a considerable waste of equipment and money.
For 6 more months of breastfeeding a mom will be spending time with this
equipment and not her child.  Is breastfeeding just a food delivery
system?  Or is something more than food?   In my opinion breastfeeding
is about how we learn to love, and luckily it also includes a source of
nutrition.  I believe that many of the problems that happen in
breastfeeding is the direct result of people thinking that it is only a
way to feed an infant/child.

At times, my children during the last year or two of nursing would get
frustrated at the breast because they would tell me that there was "no
milky." This usually happened at night and during a marathon nursing
session.  I would usually give a massage, or tell a story, distract them
for awhile and then try again to nurse.  It usually worked.  It wasn't
easy at times because I would feel like a dried up raisin from all the
nursing and they were unhappy, too.  But it never meant the end of
nursing.  I wasn't upset about a milk supply(I am not sure why I
wasn't). Eventually, things would improve.  Does this mother need
equipment to improve her situation?  I don't think so.  After learning
all her options, this mother should do whatever she thinks would work
for her and her situation. Valerie W. McClain, IBCLC

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