At 00:03 14/3/00 -0500, Jean wrote:
>1) Depending on the mother's degree of fullness for her storage capacity,
>cream that has been released into the ducts may end up getting leaked if
>the baby is switched too soon to the other breast.
I'm just 'musing' here as well Jean. The fat content is released in ever
increasing concentrations as the breastfeed progresses - because the
alveoli and ductules are 'ever increasingly' and more efficiently being
squeezed by the contracting myoepithelial cells as the breast empties. So,
by 'leaked', you mean released into the milk? Yes, I agree it will happen
to a varying degree no matter when the baby is switched.
>
>2) Or if it doesn't leak, but baby doesn't remove much of it before he
>releases that breast, my logic tells me that even if a lot of the fat
>remains mixed with the skim, at least part of it will, given time, rise
>against gravity, like cream used to separate in the glass bottles on the
>doorstep in my childhood.
Two 'musings' here: if it hasn't been released (?leaked) then it is still
adherent to the walls of the alveoli and ductules, therefore it isn't
'mixed with the skim'.
Let's say though that baby was 'half way' through 'emptying' that breast
and wanted no more. So the milk was definitely not 'skim'. What happens to
that fat if baby doesn't return to that breast to feed for say another 5
hours? My understanding is that it re-adheres to the alveoli and ductule
walls again. Now whether that is the top or the bottom is irrelevant -
it's adhered. I don't think it would 'travel' much further than the nearest
surface. Mind you, you are the one who mentioned the very small diameter of
these structures, so maybe it's just the closest wall to the fat globule.
>
>And depending on whether mother were vertical or horizontal for several
>hours between, I can visualize this having some bearing on just which
>surface of the ducts it adhered to till the next feeding.
Hmmmm. Don't know that I buy that.
(This is how I
>interpret Peter Hartmann saying that we ought to discard the terms
>foremilk and hindmilk, as during some feedings, at certain times of the
>day, baby may get more fat as he begins to feed than he got when he fell
>asleep at the breast earlier in the day.)
Now from my readings of Peter's work that's not the way I interpret it. I
believe he is saying that the concentration of fat in the milk throughout a
feed increases 'in a straight line, diagonally upwards' (when it is
graphed). If the baby were to stop somewhere along that straight line then
the line would very soon start to drop directly downwards - because the fat
is re-adhering to the cell walls. Depending on how soon afterwards the
baby goes back to feed on that breast depends on how low the fat
concentration at the start of the feed will be - but it will always be
lower than when the baby FINISHED (emphasis only) on that breast at the
last feed. It may be higher than when baby STARTED on that breast at the
last feed, but it won't be higher than when baby finished on that breast at
the last feed.
I'd appreciate other opinions on this research.
>Australian
>position per se though. I don't know how it got its name either, but I
>suspect the platypus figures into it somehow.
LOL. This I definitely can't disagree with Jean. I'm sure you're right ;-)
>
>What you say may be very true for longer term breastfeeding. But I found
>it a spendid position to show moms and their significant others in the
>hospital,
Now that's funny. My very dear friend Renate also 'argued' with me along
these lines (in a very professional sense of course). And even though I'm
still wingeing about having to do night duty (at my age!!) and you all now
know how cranky I get when I'm on nights, I'll give you the same reply as I
gave Renate:
Why teach a mother something that is only ever useful for such a brief
time. If the problem is going to be an ongoing one, then she needs a
solution for the long term. And these days we just can't waste a single
minute of their very brief hospital stay.
And side lying in bed gives mother the rest and all the other advantages of
lying down without risking the lousy drainage that this position affords
the breast at such a crucial time in establishing her lactation.
Yours in every sense of the word professional
Denise
****************************************************
Denise Fisher, BN, RM, IBCLC
BreastEd Online Lactation Studies Course
http://www.breasted.com.au
mailto:[log in to unmask]
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