At this year's ILCA conference, Marsha Walker spoke about Supplementation: Medical & Legal Issues. As usual, she packed a lot of info into her allotted time. One of her overheads was a table that outlined the newborn's stomach capacity in the first 10 days of life, both anatomical and physiological. I managed to copy down the physiological numbers, which I thought were the more critical, but wasn't fast enough to get the antomical numbers. If anyone on LN did get these numbers, could you email them to me?  TIA

I have used the physiological capacity to show parents just how little their baby needs in the first few days. They are astounded, because most of them don't remember what they were taught in their pre-natal CB clases-- something about not being able to focus on anything related to postpartum until they have "survived" the birth.

I explain the difference between physiological (what your baby can actually process) and anatomical (what can we stuff in there with no room to spare, everything else comes right back up). Then I watch them relax about how much their baby is getting at a particular feeding. Most of the parents I deal with want to quantify everything, and the non-quantifiable nature of breastfeeding really freaks them out. For some of them, it's enough to say that their baby's stomach is roughly the size of her/his own clenched fist, but others want to know numbers. So sad, but I have to take them where they are on the parenting continuum, and try to nudge them toward a more relaxed, attachment style of being with their wise babies.

Beth Sargent, IBCLC
Needham, Massachusetts

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