Humenick and Hill published 2 classic articles in J Hum Lact 1994, 10(2) on the occurance of engorgement. Patterns of engorgement vary, and one commonly experienced pattern was marked by intense, enduring engorgement that could persist for up to two weeks. This is a pattern that often results in greater risk for weaning for obvious reasons, but it did not necessarily result from mismanagement of lactation (i.e. not feeding/pumping enough early on). They also discovered that previous breastfeeding experience was an important variable in predicting engorgement "Second time breastfeeding mothers experienced engorgement sooner and more severely than did first time breastfeeding mothers." I have managed many moms with subsequent babies who were 'super-producers' with baby #1 who did everything we could both think of to reduce/prevent engorgement (including keeping colostrum drained) to no avail. They still got engorged. So I don't think we do "know" that early pumping protects against engorgement. Barbara Wilson-Clay, BSEd, IBCLC Austin Lactation Associates, Austin, Texas http://www.lactnews.com *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html