Jennifer

Yes!  As the physician you would have tremendous influence in suggesting
that the mother of the 9 month old baby weaned only six weeks ago should
re-lactate in order to protect her baby's health!  I once worked with a mom
who had weaned her baby at 5 months, and whose doctor "ordered" her to
re-lactate at 8 months in order to treat the baby's severe
constipation.  She did it!  It took about three weeks, but mom was able to
produce 250 ml of expressed breastmilk per day, and it "fixed" the
constipation.  She found that less than this amount did not work.  Because
she was not able to get the baby back to the breast we were able to measure
the amount of breastmilk that he actually received.  Anyway, once she had
succeeded, the doctor said she wanted the baby to continue to have EBM for
at least the next six months and mom complied, and was of course so proud
that she could do this for her baby.

Never under-estimate your own influence in promoting breastmilk and
breastfeeding!  My vote would be for you to advise stopping the formula
altogether and try the baby at the breast again.  At the least, you could
recommend replacing the formula with expressed breastmilk, while continuing
solid foods.  Good luck!

Pamela Morrison IBCLC, Brisbane, Australia (so proud of my friend Denise -
congratulations!)

Jennifer Tieman wrote, "I hear often about breastfed babies who's weight
gain slows significantly in
the second six months and doctors who are quick to push weaning and high
calorie solids.
Today I saw a little boy in the office for a nine month check up. He has
gained just 12 oz since his 6 month check up. Of significance, he was
weaned from the breast at 7 1/2 mos, and now drinks about 24 oz of formula a
day. So what do you all think, should I insist mom supplement with breast
milk? Stop formula so baby will eat more solids?
Anyway, flippancy aside, the one nice thing about seeing a fair number of
formula fed babies is that I see that these kids have many of the issues
that are sometimes thought to be "caused" by breastfeeding. It helps keep
perspective.
Jennifer Tieman
Family Physician
Mom to 4, including nursling Caroline Rose born 5/31/03"

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

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