----- Original Message -----
From: "S. Heaton" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Thursday, May 22, 2008 11:40 PM
Subject: Re: [LACTNET] antenatal expressing for breast reduction

**Hi Suzie and others,

> Local hospitals encourage antenatal expressing when the mother is
> diabetic. Apparently there is great success with it.  One local mum
> birthed at a major hospital 2 hours away and they were amazed at how much
> she brought in.

**Of course I also thought about this, concerning the question about the use
of antenatal expressing. What I think the difference might be: a diabetic
mother will give birth to a child that too rapidly breaks down all his
sugars and needs an early good dose of sugar rich colostrum. Considering the
size of the baby's stomach, you don't even need to express that much
colostrum to make sure the baby gets an early dose that prevents him from
hypoglycemia. With good bf policies, mother and child will be able to get
the bf relationship on track.
With the breast reduction, the intent behind expressing antenatally is to
stimulate the breast to produce more milk. Like Pat (or Nikki?) said:
pregnancy prevents copious milk production hormonally, so maybe there isn't
all that much to be expected from this action. So I think, that expressing
antenatally for a diabetic mother is primarily something you do for the
child (an its blood sugar levels), whereas expressing antenatally for a mom
after a breast reduction is something you would do to solve a problem on
*her* side, which might be: insufficient milk production. I suppose the
first stands a better chance of success than the latter, all of this being
concluded from basic understanding of lactation, not from any highly
estimated research paper. ;o)

Warmly,

Marianne Vanderveen, Netherlands

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