This is a topic that interests me especially, because I have felt for a long
time that depo might be fairly useful in adoptive nursing. However, the
only experience I know of with it is from the very limited study from Papua
New Guinea, and my own personal experience. In my case, I did not decide to
try it until my sixth, and last, baby was around ten months old. After an
initial period of feeling rotten, I had a definite increase in milk supply.
I had produced less milk for Joanna, compared to the time spent nursing,
than any of my others. I believe this was a combination of ever increasing
stress and that my health, including my heart, had started going down hill,
shortly after her adoption. I had probably been producing a total of 8
ounces a day for her, in the month or two prior to that, and we had been
using the Lact-Aid regularly, including a couple of times at night. I had
tried to get by without it when she woke up at night, but she would wake up
hungry more often. However, after a few weeks on the depo, I found that I
could get by with nursing without the Lact-Aid at all at night, without
resulting in her waking to eat any more often. There was also a significant
increase in her swallowing. A while later, I went to nurse her with the
Lact-Aid during the day, and she moved the tube out of the way, and nursed
without it from then on. I felt like she was getting at least twice as much
breast milk per feeding as she had been in the months before. She also
started nursing more frequently. Things went well until the depo wore off,
six months after I got the shot. Since I had felt so rotten for the first
few weeks after getting it, I couldn't make up my mind whether to get
another shot. I suspected my milk supply would decrease somewhat if I
started cycling again, but I wasn't prepared for the DRAMATIC decrease that
took place as soon as I got a period! AS near as I could tell, where my
supply had at least doubled when I got on the depo, when it wore off, I
think it decreased by about three-fourths.
If I was going to nurse another adopted baby, I think I would try
domperidone (which I never had access to while nursing my kids) but may also
consider getting on Depo provera and staying on it. I have not suggested
this to any other adoptive mothers, and have no plans to do so at this
point. However, I would be very interested to hear if anyone else is aware
of any more cases where it has been used in adoptive nursing, and what the
results have been, not only in milk supply, but it side-effects too.
Darillyn Starr
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