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Subject:
From:
T Pitman <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Lactation Information and Discussion <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Fri, 20 Nov 1998 15:32:31 -0500
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I may have missed some of the discussion on this topic - I've been very busy
and have had to delete a lot of stuff without reading it. (Boy I feel guilty
saying that.)

But here's my 2 cents worth on this problem of milk supplies dropping fairly
suddenly and significantly at around 3 or 4 months. I have seen a few cases
where this happened, and every time there seemed to be some breastfeeding
management problems involved.

I have seen this happen several times when mothers "ferberized" their babies
so that they were no longer waking up at night to nurse. They thought baby
was doing fine, baby didn't cry a lot, but at the next doctor visit they
find baby is not gaining weight well or has even lost weight, and milk
supply seems to be way down. Waking up the baby to nurse at night seems to
be one solution, but it's often resisted strenuously by the mothers who
don't want to have to go through the ferberization thing again in the
future.

In a couple of other cases, the problem seemed to be pacifier use. The
mothers wanted the baby on a schedule and wanted to stretch out the time
between feedings, and so used pacifiers extensively. They were also shocked
to find out baby was not gaining well. I've also seen this when babies
sucked their thumbs a lot.

My thinking is that in some women milk production is a bit unstable for
several months after birth. If they are not getting enough stimulation from
the baby at the breast, their milk supply will drop. I think we often see it
around this age because this is when people start feeling the pressure to
make baby sleep through the night or nurse less often, even if they were
"demand-feeding" in the early weeks.

Teresa

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