>Niles & Michael Newton did some very interesting studies on the let down
>reflex.  They said, "Emotional disturbances, embarrassment, and pain inhibit
>let-down to the sucking baby, and thus the baby gets little milk."

I haven't read the study (shame on me), but I'm quite sure it's based on a
population of one: Niles herself.

Oxytocin triggers MERs.  Stress releases oxytocin.  I've seen women
literally writhing in pain from damaged nipples, spraying milk all over.  I
let down once for an electrician with whom I was having a dispute over work
not done.  I always had the sense that I let down *faster* in stressful
situations than calm ones.  Maybe I'm an anomaly... but then, who's to say
Niles wasn't?  Surely *many* lactating animals live with very frequent
stress but manage to feed their young.

Many years ago I tried to trace the source of a statement found in almost
every ornithology book - that birds probably dustbathe to suffocate their
parasites.  It turns out Pliny the Elder, in the first century CE, watched
some birds dustbathing along the roadside and *speculated idly* that perhaps
the dust smothered their parasites.  Nearly 2,000 years later, the same
speculation was being repeated, utterly unsubstantiated but reinforced by
textbook repetitions.

Goodness!  I hope we don't do the same thing with stress and MERs...
--
Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC, LLLL  Ithaca, NY
www.wiessinger.baka.com

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