Dear Colleagues:
The pituitary can become damaged on a continuum of injury: from totally
and permanently infarcted to shocked and temporarily malfunctioning to
chronically underfunctioning (sub-clinical Sheehan's syndrome, estimated to affect
about 600,000 women world-wide). The new, 6th edition of Lawrence and
Lawrence suggests that prolactin-stimulating drugs, such as sulpiride, require
investigation, and mentions that the degree of hypo-pituitarism is variable.
I worked with a mother once who lost her milk supply as a result of a
postpartum hemorrhage (about the 7th day, as I recall), and required 2 units of
blood. It took nearly a month to recover her supply; she had been nursing
well until the hemorrhage. The baby was supplemented with human milk
substitutes at breast, she pumped and the milk trickled back in.
I also had a sub-clinical Sheehan's syndrome myself, which didn't appear
to have any impact on my supply. I nursed my baby and pumped an additional
6-10 ounces once a day.
As with everything else in our work, there is no one answer. Best to
suppport what is there, stimulate the nipples, feed the baby, and see what
happens, knowing that it might take more than a few weeks.
warmly,
Nikki Lee RN, MS, Mother of 2, IBCLC, CCE
Maternal-Child Adjunct Faculty Union Institute and University
Film Reviews Editor, Journal of Human Lactation
Support the WHO Code and the Mother-Friendly Childbirth Initiative
***********************************************
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
|