Hi all,

I have a question, and I hope it isn't a very stupid one.

A fellow counsellor of the Dutch bf organization is preparing a lecture for
our upcoming conference in Novembre. She will give a lecture about too much
milk, and the lecture is directed at maternity nurses, RN's, etcetera.

She and I have looked it up in several books, as in our material but we
find it a very difficult issue. The guidelines to treat overproduction as
well as the explanation about the cause (if at all) differs among several
authors. Eg the advices given differ from 'feed the baby every 4 hours and
give a pacifier in between', to 'feed frequently'.

So the first thing we do is divide the issue into 2 subissues: 'real' too
much milk (colic, gaining a lot, sturdles in the bm, plugged ducts, etc)
and overactive letdown (choking, hickups, gassy) .

Actually, I have the following questions:

1.what is your recommendation when a woman has an OALD? And when she has
too much milk? Both? (and: Can we make a subdivision between OALD too much
milk? Can those two be separated?)
2. what is the ground of your recommendation, why you recommend eg 'feed
often', or 'don't switch sides too often', etc

I ask this, since we wonder what the cause is of too much milk/OALD esp
when the baby is older than 2 months and the milk production should be
established and meeting the child's need. When I read Hartmann e.a. I see
that
1. children take from the breast as much as they need (an average of 2/3 of
the milk that is storaged in the breast);
2. the short term milkproduction is dependant of the emptiness of the breast.

Given those two, how does it happen that some women do have too much milk?
I have a few explanations: eg, not enough self-confidence, fear of not
enough milk, and the woman is unconsiously overstimulating the
milkproduction, by pumping, or without pumping, by switching sides very
often. Or, feeding on schedule (?) .

What are your ideas?

TIA!

Annelies Bon         http://utopia.knoware.nl/users/abon/bfbronnen.html
breastfeeding counsellor of the Dutch bf org "Borstvoeding Natuurlijk"
mailto:[log in to unmask]