Many thanks for everyone's kind, knowledgeable input on this case.  A
date has been set for treatment (evidently a hefty dose -- the mother
will be isolated in the hospital for three days, then sequestered at
home, and not even able to hold the baby until ok'd by a geiger-counter
reading -- though the archives had a suggestion of wrapping the thyroid
area in a lead blanket to get mother and baby back together sooner).  To
avoid active transport of iodine into the breast, we're preceding the
treatment with two weeks of weaning, followed by four weeks to allow for
involution of milk-producing tissue (in line with Nancy Mohrbacher's
reference to "several weeks" for the process).

Is allowing two weeks unnecessarily generous for weaning? The mother is
just pumping, so the baby's reaction isn't in the equation.  Could she
continue production for an extra week, and assume we can stop the flow
in one unpleasant week, maybe with some sudafed, mint, sage, cabbage,
etc.  (Perhaps continuing production for an extra week means more to me
than to this mother, who is focused on just getting past this treatment
and being there for her daughter.)  Granted, there's a huge range of
individual differences, but I'd love to hear other experiences on how
quickly an abrupt weaning will take hold (at least to the first stage of
not filling up.)

My other question is more generally about the cessation of breastfeeding
and the programmed cell-death of the alveoli -- what's the process
behind some women's ability to express a few drops of milk long after
weaning? How can we say that someone is "dried up."?  This relates
somewhat to Lisa Marasco's current thread about how relactation or
induced lactation might be affected by the mother's history.  How much
functional tissue hangs around after weaning?

Margaret Wills, LLLL, IBCLC

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

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