I agree with Linda Smith's wise post.  We don't have great data on what is
normal, and it  doubtless does stem from the fact that our births are so
often abnormal.  All the meds and interventions may be common, but normal
they are not.  It is so rare any more to see an unmedicated baby or a mother
who comes out of her birth exper. feeling empowered by that encounter with
the primal forces.  William James wrote about the need for a "moral
equivalent of war"  ie a cause or experience so dramatic and compelling that
it takes one out of one's day to day existence into a heightened state.  I
always think of  childbirth as that kind of opportunity women have for
self-discovery.  While I don't mean people should engage in martyr trips,
many of the angry and depressed women I see look like victims and survivors
rather than women warriors.  But I digress...

Linda wanted to know if any one has data on what outputs look like where
births are not  managed as ours are. I have to hunt up the ref. when I go
into the office, but I saw an article sev. yrs ago from Africa.  It didn't
address # of diapers specifically, but it did look at infant weight loss
post-partum.  3% was about the average.  I remember thinking about it at the
time and connecting that info to the home-birthed babies and LLL babies I've
seen who lost little or nothing pp and immed began to gain well.  (Of course,
here insert standard caveats that even in these pops. babies or moms can be
ill or have problems...)  I think our current acceptance as up to 10% loss of
body weight pp will one day be looked at as the same kind of ritual
starvation of infants practiced by those who wean ill babies to pedialyte.

I second Linda about looking at nipple shape when baby comes off the breast
and assessing babies individually.  But I think we need to remember how
stressed most of these techno-birth couples are, and watch babies carefully
for adequacy of intake and output.  I'll hunt up the ref. referred to above
and post to the list.

Barbara Wilson-Clay, BSE, IBCLC
priv. pract. Austin, Tx