Greeting to my wisest thousands of peers:
   A common reason for a lactation consultation is the women with their first
babies who come at the end of the first week postpartum or in the second week
with babies not gaining weight. Often this is due to poor latch, and
subsequent inadequate milk transfer.  With education and support,  many dyads
recover with corrected positioning, pumping, co-sleeping,  and baby-wearing.
Sometimes a postpartum doula is a great help.
   What is happening far too often now is the mother who corrects the
attachment and the baby wakes up and nurses like mad......and still doesn't
gain. So then the second round begins, with the feeding tube device at breast
with ABM and blessed thistle/fenugreek. But the supply doesn't increase. Some
mothers continue with the feeding tube device and pumping. Others bag it, and
comfort nurse and bottle feed. The mystery comes with the second baby, when
this same mother has an ample supply. What happened the first time? Why am I
seeing this more often?
   One soul searching sweetheart of a mother was feeling that her first week
was too stressed, with only 2 hours of sleep in 24, doing too much etc. etc.
But women have made tons of milk during war, during the crossing of the
Western Plains, during seige.....so how can stress be the answer? Is it our
modern diets? Is it the knowledge that there is now another feeding option,
when there wasn't one a hundred years ago? Is it the medicated birth
practices?  Is it our internal biochemical climate? What gives?
  It is so sad helping these mothers to accept that they can't exclusively
breastfeed, that any human milk is better than none, and to look forward to a
better time with another baby.  These are courageous women. What do you all
think? Warmly, Nikki