One possible drawback when feeding pumped milk exclusively is that
production and demand may not match.  I have worked with a mother who due to
problems getting baby latched, has given nearly all feeds by bottle.  She
produced about 3 times what the baby could consume daily, needed to stop two
or three times in each pumping session to change collection containers, and
had a baby who almost acted like she had reflux and was a very slow gainer.
I postulated that the baby wasn't getting 'well-rounded' meals, and was
sometimes missing out on most of the fat portion of the milk while getting a
distended belly from the sheer volume in the bottles.
In the beginning baby would readily take the breast and transfer milk well
and without pain for mother.  After a month of mainly bottle feeds, her
technique at the breast was much poorer, though she was still more than
willing to latch when offered the chance. She was capable of barely adequate
milk transfer by that time.
There were a lot of complicating factors in this case, and I still don't
know the whole answer.  I hope to find out.  We are still working at latch
practice, mother is still pumping more than baby needs, and I have suggested
marking the containers with the last milk from one pump session, so that
mother can use them first, and for now just freeze the rest for later use
(which I hope will be unnecessary, because I am optimistic about this dyad's
ability to get it together).
This mother had so much milk that when her freezer was filled to bursting
and she was still pumping about 1/3 gallon or more every day, she would
empty her pump bottles into the cat or dog dishes.  Recurrent mastitis made
it undesirable for our bank, unfortunately.

Of course there is nothing better to put in a bottle than the milk that is
being produced for a certain mother for her own baby.  But each drop of a
bottle feed is the same as the last, and the next.  The nuances of the
tailoring of a feed are lost when the food is delivered by bottle.
Rachel Myr
Kristiansand, Norway

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