I have occasionally tested milk for fat content.

Before you all jump in and shout at me, it can be useful on rare
occasions when everything else, including illness in baby, have been
looked at.
There is a specific way of doing it - over 24 hours - which gives total
fat which baby is getting.
I do it about once a year, and only once has there been a problem.
In this instance the total fat content was 10g/litre - very low.
We managed, over a period of 3 weeks to increase it to normal levels and
the baby then thrived on breastfeeding until Mum weaned at 18 months of
age. Baby was about 3 months old when we tested the milk.

The moral of this story is that this baby would have had to have changed
to artificial feeding had the milk not been tested and we found the
reason for the failure to thrive.

I feel that we are dismissing out of hand a test which is available to
us which may be useful on a few occasions. No-one is suggesting that
this should be a routine with all problems, let us keep an open mind
please!

Regards,

--
Carolyn Westcott RN IBCLC Southampton UK
mailto:[log in to unmask]

             ***********************************************
The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html