Jean wrote:
> At the risk of sounding well, simple-minded, I submit the following
reminder.
>  If we do nothing at all about pumping and the mother doesn't put the baby
to
> the breast at all, colostrum and milk will still "come in
> So, I don't think we should get too hung up on numbers or arbitrary time
> frames.

What about engorgement? I understood that, in simple terms, if your breasts
aren't stimulated early and often, then although you may become engorged,
the milk supply down the road may be impaired.

> Where I work, we've recently revised our policies for "normal" newborns
and
> breastfeeding expectations.  Our expected normal for the baby within the
> first 24 hours of life is:  one latch/suck/breastfeeding. More is fine,
> obviously.  We found that nurses were spending 20, 20 or 40 minutes w/ a
mom
> and baby "trying" to get the poor baby to latch.  This led to frustration,
> babies' being quite turned off  about feeding, increased maternal anxiety
> (what was the problem really--I think it was our expectations of what the
> baby "should" do).

This can work the other way as well, I think that any one who has educated
themselves even a little prior to giving birth would also be very frustrated
if her baby wasn't nursing 8x  in 24 hours like all  the books suggest. I
suppose each case is different. We try to encourage lots of skin to skin,
but also monitor the situation so that we aren't frustrating the baby ,
usually when baby is showing cues, we will try about  15 minutes, if no
luck, then have mom pump. This has worked out well because as you all know
10 minutes can quickly turn to 60 minutes and the baby stilll hasn't been
fed.

>I don't believe we've seen any significant
> differences in milk production regardless of when the mom starts pumping.
> Really,  based on physiology of lactogenesis, we have two weeks for milk
> production to proceed, so what's the hurry??

Are there studies to prove this? I would really like to know, maybe we are
indeed putting too much emphasis on the early and often idea.
Marilyn

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