Amy wrote:
<< I think we are SO well nourished, our bodies feel they could support
another preg/lact cycle. My personal longest amenorrhea was 7 months after
my second, who was born 15 months after my first, and I was tandem nursing --
and it wasn't fair!!! And it is frustrating to constantly be saying "yes, I
co-slept, no paci, no bottles, etc, etc, etc" >>
In THE POLITICS OF BREASTFEEDING (1993) Gabrielle Palmer wrote of an
experiment done in Keneba, The Gambia (the little nation shaped like a finger
sticking into Senegal, West Africa), "One of their projects was to supplement
lactating women's diet to see if this would increase their milk supply. The
women do extremely hard agricultural work on a much lower energy diet than
western women eat and are either pregnant or lactating for most of their
adult lives. The supplement did not appear to make any significant
difference to their milk output as measured by the baby's intake, and on the
whole the researchers had to conclude that food intake did not influence milk
supply. What did happen was that after taking the dietary supplement, the
mothers' prolactin levels went down and some of them ovulated." page 122.
Palmer's notes reference Prentice, A M et al, 'Dietary supplementation of
Gambian nursing mothers and lactational performance', LANCET, ii, 1980, pp
886 - 8.
So, what happens if a western woman maintains a no more than adequate weight
and exercises daily. Is she less likely to experience an early return of
menstruation than women who eat more and/or are less active?
Do women using LAM for family planning try to maintain a certain weight
and/or keep up physical activity?
Alice Martino,
accredited volunteer with major support group
in central New York State
mailto:[log in to unmask]
***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html
|
