Hello everyone.  I've been sitting here the last few days reading the posts
on "poor early feeders" and being amazed at all the suggestions of pump use
if the baby has not fed well in the first X number of hours.  I realize that
all the pre-delivery interventions may result in a sleepy baby or one with a
disorganized suck and thus necessitate post-delivery interventions such as
pumps and finger-feeding or SNS.  At the same time, I can't believe that the
mother's body has to have the sensation of the baby suckling properly at the
breast to tell it that a baby is out there wanting milk.  I'm winging it
here, folks, I admit, but it would seem to me that the *sight* *sound*
*touch* and *smell* of the baby in the first hours/days are overwhelming
signals to the mother that the baby is there.  Certainly direct stimulation
of the nipple helps bring in the milk, but I suspect it would come in anyway
-- in many many cultures the baby is not put to the breast until the milk
comes in on the 2nd or 3rd day (sometimes the baby is nursed by someone
else, or gets medicinal teas), and the milk still comes in.  Studies in many
animals species have shown that it is the sight/smell/touch/sound of the
newborn that tell the mother to start being maternal.  If you take a newborn
calf or goat away from its mother even for a few hours and then return it
the mother will act like the newborn is an alien from outer space.  It would
seem to me that the thing you want to encourage most, rather than getting
the baby to latch-on well in the first 4-6 hours if it doesn's seem
interested, is to *keep the mother and baby in physical contact at all
times* for that period.  Separating mother and baby, so that the mother
can't see/feel/hear/smell her baby, even if she is pumping, may send signals
that the baby has died -- isn't it obvious that the baby has died if there
is no baby present?

I have a master's degree student researching links between post-partum
depression and lack of breastfeeding -- the idea that serious post-partum
depression can come from the confusing signals the mother is getting -- her
breasts are telling her there is no baby/the baby died, while her
eyes/ears/hands/nose tell her the baby is there, but she is dealing with a
newborn without help of the appropriate mothering hormones.  She gets
depressed/overwhelmed.  The truth of this idea is nowhere close to being
established.

Now, as I said at the beginning, perhaps all the interventions surrounding
birth then require more interventions surrounding breastfeeding, but I just
don't buy the idea that the mother doesn't know the baby is there if it
isn't nursing, and has to be convinced by the pump.


Katherine A. Dettwyler, Ph.D.
e-mail to [log in to unmask]
Associate Professor of Anthropology
Texas A&M University
Specialist in infant feeding and growth