Chris says,

> And this=
> is=20
> assuming that the chart that shows how other babies of the same age were=20
> growing is based on babies who were being fed the same stuff in the same=20
> way---exclusively breastfed babies compared to other exclusively
> breastfed=20
> babies, for instance.
>
But one of the problems w/ using weight charts or growth charts or anything
else charts is that 800 ml of milk from one mother is not the same number of
calories as 800 ml of milk from another mother.  If you look closely at
Hartmann's work (or anyone else, for that matter), you see that the gms of
fat can vary from woman to woman, from feed to feed, from time of day to time
of day, from beginning to end of feed.  It is certainly one thing to
determine how much a formula fed baby needs/takes when the composition of
formula is totally static.  It's 20 kcal/ounce.  Period.  Forever and ever,
amen.  So even looking at weight charts based on exclusively breastfed babies
will be deceiving because of the differences in caloric content of the milk
of various mothers -- though you can come up w/ somewhat of an average.

Breastmilk is completely different.  How do we know what the kcal of a
particular ounce of breastmilk is?  Chris, remember back in 1992 when Susan
Carlson spoke at ILCA, and said that on average, the milk of a mother of a 4
month old averaged approximately 26 kcal/ounce.  That explains part of your
post about how breastfed babies don't need nearly as many ounces as we would
assume -- partially it is as you said, the energy needs decrease as the baby
gets older -- but partially it is because the caloric value of the milk
increases as the baby gets older.  To me it is a miracle that babies of all
sizes and shapes do just beautifully on an average intake of 750-850
ml/breastmilk/day!

God probably didn't put transparent breasts and ounce marks on them because
it really didn't make any difference what the volume of milk is that the baby
takes since it varies from baby to baby, feed to feed, mother to mother, and
age to age.

Mother's milk is magic.  Truly it is.

Jan -- who promised to lurk, but broke that promise the very next digest.
Sorry all.

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