Pat Gima says,
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I doubt that there is a universal limit to the amount of milk women can
produce but I suspect that a given woman has her own limit. I have found
that most of my clients find it easier to make more milk with each
subsequent birth. This becomes of note when they struggled to have enough
in an earlier experience.
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I agree with Pat. While there are some women that can produce copious
amounts of milk, I suspect is a huge range of amount of milk-making tissue
(alveoli) between women just as there is a large range of milk storage capacity. I
have a mom of twins who is nursing each baby at least 8 times a day PLUS
pumping, and she isn't making quite enough. She has to supplement. (And yes
she's on all the "stuff' to increase supply). She would have enough for one
baby, but she doesn't have enough for two. And then you have the moms with one
baby that are, as Dee said, producing WAY more than their babies need. Why?
There isn't an easy answer such as the way or frequency that the baby nurses
-- so I suspect it lies in the number of alveoli the mom has.
With my third baby (the one that made me an LC), I produced virtually NO
milk on my left side. I'd comfortably nursed both daughters -- never having an
overabundance, but having enough. I had a minor mastitis when Torrey Beth
was three weeks old, and milk supply decreased in that breast -- but still had
enough for her. When Timothy came along, the most I ever got out of that
same breast was 3 cc (and that was when I was back to work, pumping at work
diligently with the Ameda-Egnell SMB (granny pump). With Tim, I was never able
to produce enough milk for him because my right side, despite what I did,
could never make up for what the left side lacked. Tim would nurse on that left
side, but it was mostly for comfort. At 7 months I finally bagged it, quit
pumping on that side and quit nursing on that side, and nursed solely on the
right side until we stopped nursing entirely at about a year.
What was it that stopped production in that side? No one knows, and no one
has ever been able to figure it out. I've had many mammograms since then --
it was 20 years ago -- and nothing has ever shown up. Best guess is scar
tissue from the mastitis, but even that is a long shot, since I've not heard of
any other women who were affected by a mastitis in a previous breastfeeding
situation. And the mastitis wasn't even all that bad!
There are mysteries beyond mysteries. For those of you who are interested,
my Jill's hormonal tests all came back normal, and she is still only getting
a total of about 1 ounce per pumping at 6 weeks. (We did prolactin, thyroid,
testosterone, progesterone & HCG). Jill is a wonderful mother -- she's
fabulous with Deven (we are calling him by his Indian middle name instead of
Nathaniel), and my husband wants to know how any couple can parent without a
sling. When I came home from teaching in Knoxville on Saturday night, Bob was
babysitting; Deven was cuddled up with his Papa Bob in my purple sling.
Jan Barger, RN, MA, IBCLC (GranJan of the Purple Sling)
Wheaton IL
www.lactationeducationconsultants.com
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