Dear Marley,
I'm a little late coming to the discussion of "emptying time" for the breast.
Still, I want to add my $.02.
There are two points I'd like to make about "emptying."
1) We have a problem in the English language, because the word "empty" can be
an adjective describing a container with nothing in it, and it can also be a
verb "to empty" that means "to remove the contents, partially or completely"
as in, "The teakettle is too full. Empty some of the water before it boils
over." So if milk is going from breast to baby faster than it is being
replaced by new milk synthesis, the breast is "emptying," even though, at the
end of the process, it may not be "empty."
Part of our problem is that people think a breast works like a bottle. This
analogy with a bottle just confuses the issue, because the bottle is not
re-filling at the same time the baby is emptying it. But people tend to
assume that the breast functions the same way.
2) The baby can be "finished" with a feed whether or not the breast is
"empty." [And actually the analogy with a bottle works better here.] Since
the main point of putting the baby to the breast is to meet whatever need he
or she has at the moment that can be met by breastfeeding---hunger, thirst,
needing to suck, needing to connect with Mom, a belly cramp, being tired, or
just feeling out of sorts---it doesn't really matter what is or isn't in the
breast. It doesn't really matter whether the breast is "full" or "empty" or
somewhere in between. What matters is how the baby feels.
If your group is trying to relate "length of feeding" with "breast emptying
time," they may just be spinning their wheels. They should look at one of my
favorite articles:
Woolridge MW, JD Baum, RF Drewett (1982). Individual patterns of milk intake
during breast feeding. Early Human Development 7, 265-272.
In this study, 20 6-day-old babies who were all latching and nursing well
were weighed before, during, and after a feed. The babies were offered both
breasts, but the babies were in charge of whether and how long they took each
breast.
Eight of the 20 nursed on both breasts for an average feed length of 22
minutes and took an average of 70 cc of milk. One baby nursed for 4 minutes
on one breast and took 70 cc of milk. The other eleven babies fell somewhere
between these two extremes of feed length, with a range of 50-85 cc ingested.
So a person with a wristwatch would have had NO idea of how much milk the
babies took---and since the babies were all satisfied after the feeding, what
difference does it make?
Best wishes to you and your coalition.
Chris Mulford, RN, IBCLC
Swarthmore PA USA
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