>Diane and Cindy -
>Do you think it possible that these ladies breasts are so large that the
>milk sinuses are positioned far enough back that the baby cannot reach
>them, until he grows a bit and his mouth gets a little larger, or his
>breastfeeding technique matures to the degree that he is taking more breast
>tissue into his mouth. That would explain the success later on. Just a
>thought.

I responded to Mary privately before I realized she had posted to lactnet
as well.  Basically I said:

I went through this same thought, and decided that since *nothing* we did
got any milk out at first, there wasn't milk there to get.  (At one week,
regardless of how poorly a baby has been nursing, there ought to be more
than an eyedropper full.)  And the donor mother's experience w/ the glass
flange working better than the regular one on one side, even tho baby
accesses the milk fine on both sides, made me feel that the low-milk-mom,
whose supply has grown a lot, has more milk not because her baby can
finally reach the sinuses (she's not much bigger now than the milk donor's
baby was at birth), but because the mom's been working hard to create a
supply where there wasn't one.  But I really doubt we'll ever know for sure
about the initial problem.

I also doubt that any lactnetters who aren't fully awake will be able to
wade thru the next-to-last sentence above and make sense of it...

Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC, LLLL  Ithaca, NY