>Mom never noticed a time when her milk came in, does not feel that her
>breasts ever enlarged or got firmer, has a PIS , when she pumps she gets
>a few drops only , even after it has been several hours since baby
>nursed.
>
>Do very large breasted women sometimes not feel the milk come in or the
>let down feeling?

Cindy -

For the past 10 weeks I've been working with the largest breasts I've ever
seen.  No obvious enlargement during pregnancy, and she, too, could pump
only drops.  No sense that milk "came in", no leaking, no let-down
sensation, baby very dry and dropping weight.  Over the first few weeks,
while she fed w/ an SNS and improved her positioning, we tried Medela and
Egnell flanges, the large glass Medela flange, and hand expression.  I,
too, thought maybe we just couldn't find the milk in those large breasts.
But I finally sat back and thought, "No, every indication is that it's just
not there."

She has continued to feed w/ the SNS, doing as much "bare nursing" (no SNS)
as the baby/she will tolerate.  Now, at 10 weeks, the baby has on occasion
taken 3 oz from her over the course of an hour (thank you, BabyWeigh), she
has resumed the pumping that she had found too discouraging to continue and
is able to pump at least 2 oz in the middle of the night, she hears
rhythmic swallowing more and more often, and the amount of supplement has
plateaued and may finally be inching down.

The moral, I think, is that what Mother Nature didn't create during pg,
Mother Herself can create through regular suckling.  We still don't know
if/when she'll be able to get rid of the SNS, but her supply has gone from
virtually zero to at least half her baby's needs over the past 10 weeks,
and is continuing to improve.  And I'm convinced now that it just wasn't
there at the start.

Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC, LLLL  Ithaca, NY