Hello, my name is Sarah Graves and I am a junior nursing student at the University of North Dakota. I have recently joined this listserv because of my interest in the importance of breast-feeding and ways to promote it. The topic that I found interesting while doing research was the correlation between maternal obesity and poor breast-feeding and lactation outcomes. I thought this is an important issue because breast-feeding has so many benefits. For example, infants who were breast-fed show better growth patterns and have a reduced risk of being overweight later in life (Baker, Michaelsen, Rasmussen, & Sorensen, 2004). I read about many studies that were done concerning this matter and they seemed to all come to about the same conclusions. One study conducted by Li, Jewell, and Grummer-Strawn, (2003), compared prepregnancy obesity or excessive weight gain during pregnancy to a decrease in initiation and maintenance of breast-feeding. They found that women who were obese before pregnancy were less likely to breast-feed than women who were of normal weight before pregnancy. They also found those women who had prepregnancy obesity and did breast-feed, did so for an average of two weeks less than the women of normal weights. A possible explanation for this low rate of successful breast-feeding in obese mothers is that they may be experiencing delayed onset of lactogenesis II. The initiation of lactogenesis mostly relies on an increase in prolactin secretion and a fall in the progesterone levels which should occur after delivery. Obese mothers may have an elevated amount of progesterone compared to normal weight mothers due to excess adipose tissue; therefore causing a delayed fall in progesterone and lactogenesis (Hilson, Rasmussen, & Kjohede, 2004). A study conducted by Hilson, Rasmussen, and Kjolhede, (2004), compared the onset of lactogenesis II in women with a prepregnant BMI of >26.1 to women with a prepregnant BMI of <26. They found that there was a correlation between a later onset of lactogenesis in women with a prepregnant BMI of >26.1. My questions are: What factors do you think cause obese mothers to breast-feed for shorter amounts of time than normal weight mothers? Is there any medical intervention to quicken the onset of lactogenesis in obese mothers to help promote breast-feeding? And finally, how often do you personally see obese mothers have problems such as those mentioned during breast-feeding? Thank you so much for your time and your responses are very much appreciated! Sarah Graves, SN University of North Dakota References: Baker, J., Michaelsen, K., Rasmussen, K., & Sorensen, T. (2004). Maternal prepregnant body mass index, duration of breastfeeding, and timing of complementary food introduction are associated with infant weight gain. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 80, 1579-1588. Hilson, J., Rasmussen, K., & Kjolhede, C. (2004). High prepregnant BMI is associated with poor lactation outcomes among white, rural women independent of psychosocial and demographic correlates. Journal of Human Lactation, 20(1), 18-29. Li, R., Jewell, S., & Grummer-Strawn, L. (2003). Maternal obesity and breast-feeding practices. American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, 77, 931-936. *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html