Catching up, and just came across Chanita's message, where she says, "But
the fact is that only one in 10 mothers, if that many, absolutely can't feed
their babies, either due to maternal or infant causes."

Is the figure for mothers who can't breastfeed really that high?
Infant-related breastfeeding difficulties are many and varied, but the large
majority can be resolved with time, if the mom is motivated to maintain
lactation, and would not ultimately seem to be valid reasons for "not being
able to breastfeed."  Maternal causes may be more critical.  Today I saw a
mother of a 4-day-old baby referred by her OB because she has "no milk". I
was very sceptical of this diagnosis, but it's true.  Breasts large and
flaccid, massage and manual expression produced not even a glisten.  Mother
has one other child aged 5 years, no lactation for this baby either, and no
menstruation for two and a half years prior to this pregnancy, ovulation
induced with medication. This brings to 3 the number of new mothers (out of
about 1800) I have seen who literally did not lactate.  This brings my
personal "can't BF" stats to 0.16%, before today it was 0.11%.  Perhaps
others have different figures?

Pamela, Zimbabwe
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