Dear Karleen
thanks for your reply

I realise the importance of local autocrine control, I was thinking in
terms of kick starting suply in relactation or induced lactation mostly,
when just stimulation to nipple is what is needed initially so there is
milk to remove at all to then be able to be replaced... and when the
infant is not necessarily already available or willing to suckle.

I agree with your comments about technology....ideally in induced
lactation sort of situations a co-operative baby could be loaned out (so
to speak) and another mother could wet nurse the adoptive infant until
the adopting mother's supply was adequate to take over.

a bit of a side line thought....
I wonder what the orangutans would do with a human infant? Bet they
would nurse it!
just loved these human primate discussions lately!

Too many women seem to think all sort of  paraphernalia is essential to
breastfeed and make it seem as much trouble as artificial feeding.
(Those same mothers seem to think though that they need all sorts of
other things like a special "nursery" room, change table, all sorts of
clothing, furniture and stuff....oh dear, our consumer society, but gee,
that's progress!)

Alison

> Hi Alison,
> Interesting idea. I have not heard of TENS being used to provide nipple
> stimulation but I think that it would be worth looking at. My daughter is
> just about to start TES (Therapeutic Electrical Stimulation) at night to
> help improve blood flow to her injured arm and increase the size of the
> muscle fibres that have nerve connections; she has a quite severe brachial
> plexus injury affecting her right arm and hand. TES provides a higher level
> of e-stim than TENS I believe but if TENS increased blood flow to the breast
> also it could not but help. If it also provided stimulation that increased
> prolactin levels it might be useful early in relactation/induced lactation
> but once there was milk being produced, milk removal would be more important
> in increasing milk supply, alone it would not do that much I suspect. So it
> could be a useful adjunct but would not replace the basics.
>
> I remain fairly wary of "technology" (meaning drugs, pumps etc) when it
> comes relactation/induced lactation because it seems to me that women often
> latch onto these new things as what they need, sometimes at the expense of
> what is really necessary (ie to remain in close contact with their baby and
> breastfeed frequently). I don't think it is helpful to breastfeeding in
> general for women to believe that they need "stuff" in order to breastfeed.
> That's not to say that it could not be a useful tool and would perhaps have
> a wider relevence to all women with supply problems that cannot be overcome
> by the usual means. If you have a go, please let us know how it goes.
>
> I would also be interested in the thoughts of others.
>
> Karleen Gribble
> Australia
>
> >
> > G'day!
> > I have been  pondering the role of nipple stimulation in both prolactin
> > and oxytocin release and was just wondering whether anyone has ever
> > tried TENS (transcutaneous electrical nerve stimulation) to get
> > breastfeeding  going or augment what is already happening naturally.
> >
>

             ***********************************************

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [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