In a message dated 98-01-24 13:30:47 EST, you write:

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 What do we know of no mammary response to birth?
  >>

I know a mother whose baby was born with a severe tracheo-esophageal fistula
-- couldn't safely take anything p/o until it was surgically repaired around a
week -- also a very traumatic delivery, baby needed to be resuscitated,
parents suddenly ignored and thrown out while baby is whisked off to NICU etc.
The mom pumped religiously around the clock on the hospital's classic pump but
NEVER saw more than DROPS of milk -- basically as far as we could tell
lactogenesis was completely supressed by stress and terror.  I think that if
she had kept it up until he was better and home and safe and she could relax
perhaps she would have begun to lactate after all -- but in the two weeks
until he came home she got nada, and gradually became discouraged  ("this
isn't his biggest problem" -- well, no, but he wasn't a baby who needed any
*more* problems, either ) and switched to formula.  (Thank God at 1 year old
he is healthy and well, even though of course it makes me sad that after so
long in the NICU when he could hardly feel his parents touch he never made it
to the breast.)

Elisheva Urbas
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NYC