I also comment on the grace period mom & baby enjoy --
practicing nursing and simply being together in the
early hours and days.  The system seems well designed
to accommodate early fumbling on both sides.  This
seems to assure moms that a little fumbling is to be
expected.  Everyone, of course, wants it to be perfect
& easy immediately.

I paint a picture of engorgement as the body's warning
that somewhere between the latch and emptying and the
rhythm of mother and child something is not quite
right.  Of course many factors contribute to
engorgement but many mothers have been convinced
engorgement is such a normal part of the postpartum
experience they are alarmed if they don't see it!
Observation reveals that mothers whose babies remain
in their natural habitat at the breast, suckling well
and at will, transition into a full milk supply with
little notice of change except a "feeling of fullness"
and a "feeling of emptying."

As others have commented, I also see shocked faces
when I assure new parents that the amount of colostrum
produced is absolutely perfect.  Since hearing Marsha
Walker speak at a LLLI conference on the physiological
capacity of the newborn stomach versus anatomical
capacity I have borrowed her phrase "Thanksgiving"
capacity.  It's catchy, new parents know what I'm
talking about & don't want to stuff their newborns
unhealthily.  (Yes, it's a terribly American phrase
but fits a terribly American problem...)  And it
certainly puts the picture right again:  We should be
feeding infants in the way they were born to expect
feeding;  we should not pattern breastfeeding on
recent experiments in artificial feeding.

Susan Johnson  MFA, IBCLC
preaching to the choir from
Salt Lake City, USA

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