>
>
>Often oversupply is problematic for the mother due to discomfort, increased incidence of plugged ducts, mastitis, leaking, etc. Often it is problematic for babies due to a fat/lactose imabalance causing gastric disturbances, colic, breast refusal (also a problem for mom--actually all of the baby' problems are mom's problems), inability to control flow leading to poor latch and possible loss of supply over time, reflux, an inability to comfort at the breast, possibly leading to overuse of artificial nipples and early weaning, and the loss of the joy and pleasure of the breastfeeding relationship for both mom and babe
>

We lived through several months of bad troubles that I associated with
oversupply.  To begin with, yes, there were the colics, refluxy baby,
etc.  During the colics, she would nurse then cry and nurse then scream
and nurse some more interspersed with bouts of screaming, then
projectile vomit, then nurse some more before finally falling into a
deep sleep.  That phase, luckily, ended when she was about 3 months old.
 I guess she had figured out how to handle the volume partly, and also I
was doing several hours per side to bring the production down.  Then,
when she was 3.5-4 mos old she discovered her fingers to suck on, and by
4.5 mos old, she was starting a nursing-strike kind of behaviour.  She
would not nurse for pleasure, and not even when she was obviously very
hungry...I had to rock her to sleep while she sucked on her fingers, and
then nurse her before she got too into her deep sleep phase.  :-(  That
lasted until she was almost 10 mos old.  I remember thinking all along
that I was very glad that she had neither artificial nipples (bottles or
paci's) to wean to, nor did she eat any large quantities of solid foods
(started with about a tsp a day at 8.5 mos...by 12 mos it was maybe a
tbsp per meal).  She obviously needed the milk, so my only trouble was a
way to get it into her.  At 10 mos old, she looked like a little Buddah
with slits for eyes, she had that much chubb. ;-)  However, she was 20
lbs then and stayed that weight and is still the same weight even now.
 She was a fairly small (i.e. short statured) child, and still is.  Now,
at almost 27 mos with me 4 months along with #2, and her getting very
little of anything at all (colostrum I assume:  yellow and salty and
small quantities), she is not a very skinny child.  However, she is not
as chubby as some of the kids I see (who mainly eat diets of fries,
chips, pogo dogs, hot dogs, and soda...whereas at least we eat a
generally healthy menu around here, and my daughter even loves and
devours salad!).

On a slightly different topic, I was at a bf meeting on monday where a
lady said her son had self-weaned to the bottle.  He was about 9 mos
old, obviously teething, wanting to bite, and mom had said no several
times.  I don't know if it was enough to scare him, but he went from a
baby who never wanted a bottle, overnight to a baby who ONLY wanted the
bottle.  I call that a nursing strike personally, though she did try to
offer the breast to him for 2 weeks.  He chews a bit on the teat, sucks
some, chews some more...I guess my thought in this case would be to
starve the suck, not the child (i.e. cup feed) and to offer a toy to
chew on if he wants to chew while at the breast (i.e. have it close by
while nursing).  But this mom was not overly unhappy because her
original intent was to nurse "day to day"...i.e. maybe a week, or 2, or
4...and when she got to 8 mos she figured she'd probably make it to a
year to avoid formula.

Anyhow...that wasn't really related, but I thought it was interesting
how these babies change so suddenly sometimes.

Fio
ressource person with Allaitement Québec
Mama to Sandrine, 26.5 mos and #2, 11/2002

             ***********************************************
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