In response to Diane:

I know the theory, yet I still don't believe it or at the very least consider the theory to 
have mutated into a bizarre form of lactoengineering.  Every biological system has 
fluctuations in levels - biorhythms.  Chaos theory completely appllies to all of these 
fluctuations in biochemical levels.  They are fine if they fluctuate within a range, but if 
you hit some tipping event they can then get into "frequencies" that are unhealthy.  Heart 
rhythms for instance.  

Cathy Genna sent in references for at least five studies that debunked the idea that you 
can increase growth with fat content in BREASTFEEDING infants. Infants grew better if 
they took in more.  Infants grew worse if they took in less.  The fat content didn't matter.  
The fat content of women with a lower supply probably appears lower because you get 
down to the fat faster.  Since the human norm before we started messing around with our 
feeding modes was frequent feeding --- it seems to me that the human norm is a lower 
fat content.

I know Paula Meier has lactoengineered higher fat content for premies, but (please 
correct me if I'm wrong on this Dr. Wight) this only resulted in fatter babies, albeit Breast 
milk fed babies.  That extra fat may not be healthy.  These babies actually needed 
compensatory mechanisms for premature withdrawal of the umbilical cord which should 
have given them higher mineral stores.

Many of the symptoms of "oversupply" are often the same as "overactive milk ejection 
reflex".  How do you really tell the difference?  I have, on occaision, seen a mother 
without that has enormous breast milk storage capacity who flows slowly, but not often.  
I figure she must have lots of milk producing cells and very narrow ducts.  I figure the 
rest must have swollen ducts that are wider simply because so much milk is crammed in.

Now, here's a problem I am starting to think about. With all this lactoengineering, 
mothers who have a high supply in our cultures that have an environment that pushes 
moms and babies to the limits and often causes an asynchrony ---- we are pushing them 
into the set up for obesity in many ways.  We help them to learn to guzzle down the milk, 
we push them to take the fattier part of the milk when they stop swallowing in the classic 
scenario that used to happen when children were fed fat to gain weight.  I have a friend 
who was fed milkshakes.  Then we further engineer it such that we take away the less 
fatty part of the milk with a little pumping first --- (which is pragmatically a challenge --- 
I don't know too many women that do this well with a pump and just a few more who can 
do it by hand) so the infant is being crammed with fat again. Now because the infant has 
been crammed with fat, the infant doesn't want to eat for a longer stretch --- so, good 
bye to normal eating (which is snacking) and hello to infrequent overeating where the gut 
is stretched and spends a longer time digesting the harder to digest fat.  Isnt' this a little 
like the formula scenario?

I just went to a conference on suck/swallow.  While it concentrated on GERD --- yes I 
know some of you like Harvey Karp don't believe in it --- this was the Ph-probe level type 
where we watched what happened to the milk as it sent down.  I always hate watching 
those.  But --- I think what we are all talking about whatever we point our fingers at as 
the main "diagnosis" might be a package deal of systemic failure.

One of the slides got me thinking.   Higher flow rates or larger boluses force the infant 
into taking more swallows.  This leaves less time for breathing and coordinating the suck 
swallow breast.  Along with all the other nasty things that disrupting the ability to breath 
after you swallow can cause, this lead to poor endurance, shortened feeding, and 
inadequate intake. Now, I know their are the "norms" but I am thinking that what many 
of us perceive as "oversupply" is really a situation where the baby could have done it if 
mom had allowed the baby to feed frequently without too much rushing from the 
beginning.  No, I don't think this would cure all ills, but I do think we'd see less of these 
problem babies.

Finally, I really don't mess around with the pump for oversupply --- I only use it once in 
the morning if need to clear out all the nooks and crannies so mom doesn't get plugged 
ducts, the baby gets a really comfortable feed at the next feeding and actually learns to 
pull and believe it or not, mom's supply doesn't climb into the stratosphere.  I find the 
frequent taking the edge off puts it higher and higher.

Best, Susan

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