Dear Pamela,
I read with interest, your accounts of the cases of re-lactation that you
have encountered.  I have a personal experience which I would like to share
with you with regards to induced lactation ( Elizabeth Hormann's
definition- a gap of more than six months between the last breastfeeding
and the present attempt would be regarded as induced lactation).
I breastfed my son for close to 12 months before leaving him with my mother
in law for about 25 days.  During that time, I had to wean him off to
formula milk.  It was reluctance that I had to do so.  During the time of
separation, I tried to express whenever I could, in my busy schedule of
travelling.  On my return,  I found it hard to get him back to the breast-
so I continued to express by hand and gently cuddle him whenever I could.
He was diagnosed as asthmatic by the end of his second year and I was
devastated and desperate to get him back to the breast  in the course of
that year. We  did get back to the breast at the end of the second year.
He went on to breastfeed an average of three time a day, rather discretely
until he weaned himself off when he was about four and a half years.  ( In
all, he was breastfed for three and a half years).  Hard work , but
pleasurable and worth all the trouble.  Amazing but possible to breastfeed
if you put your heart to it.
Doris Fok
Lactation Consultant in Singapore