to: Barbara Holmes <[log in to unmask]>

Barbara,
You wrote that you saw a mom at WIC whose doctor told her to wean her
baby of less than 2 months because of the mom's anemia. I wonder what
the doctor was thinking, since women who don't breastfeed are more
likely to be anemic, according to a study done on WIC moms. (Bodnar LM,
KS Scanlon, DS Freedman, AM Siega-Riz, ME Cogswell (2001) High
prevalence of postpartum anemia among low-income women in the United
States. Am J Obstet Gynecol 185:438-43)

The study found that the longer women breastfed, the less likely they
were to be anemic. The authors state that maternal iron loss via milk is
about half that via menses. They cite another study that looked at
mothers six months after birth: 98.8% of the non-lactating women had
menses, compared with 14.5% of the lactating women.

If the mom wants to relactate, it sure makes sense to me.

Chris Mulford, RN, IBCLC
LLL Leader Reserve
working for WIC in South Jersey (Eastern USA)
Co-coordinator, Women & Work Task Force, WABA

             ***********************************************

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [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(R)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html