Dear all:

Cathy Genna posted a series of articles a couple of years ago that showed fairly clearly that it is milk volume, not fat content that makes a difference in growth.  It makes sense to me that there might be an advantage to the increase in fat levels within a particular feed.  If a baby has a mother with a low volume of milk and they continue to feed for a longer duration as a result of that low volume of milk and as a result of really staying on longer they do take in more of the higher fat milk -- it might COMPENSATE to a certain extent for low volume.

As for frequency -- you can have frequent feeders for a variety of reasons that may or may not have anything to do with supply.  Some babies who regurgitate frequently will also feed frequently and gain at a double than average rate.  If you tested the milk of these mothers at the moment when the baby was no longer feeding from a breast -- that you might find a lower fat content than the fat content you would find after the mythical "average" baby.  Some babies have suck swallow problems and cannot drain the breast well -- so even though they are drinking a small amount of milk -- their mothers may not yet have down regulated to the baby's capacity and again, if you tested the milk at the point when the baby could no longer drink from a breast -- you might still find a lower fat content than after the mythical "average" baby.  If you had a mother that had a supply that wasn't stimulated adequately or had some medical problem that impeded her ability to produce sufficient milk, you might then find a higher fat content than the mythical average baby.

I see an enormous amount of  amount of effort that some mothers go to in the first two weeks of life to train their infants into abnormal feeding patterns pushing the baby to finish on one breast when the baby is no longer able to do so in an effort to get to the "fatty milk"  and then using the pump on the other breast to feed the freezer.  In reality, if you think about this approach it actually ends up resulting in a baby who is underfed and an excess milk supply that ends up ensuring the baby gets a less than normal fat content.  The fat is being fed to the freezer.

Finally, most of the women who seem to be most concerned about fat content seem to be in areas of the world that have high childhood obestity rates which are increasing at an astronomical rate.  Do we really want them to be developing bizarrely artificial strategies to only give their infants "fatty milk"?   The starve and gorge method of infant feeding really is a set up for eating disorders on either side of the spectrum.


Best, Susan Burger

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