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Lactation Information and Discussion <[log in to unmask]>
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Fri, 3 Nov 2006 09:50:09 +0000
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Jaye posted about the baby whose mother reported a sudden drop in milk supply.

Here's my take on it.

The baby is four months old. He's healthy, sociable, normal and 
developing well. He is neither dehydrated nor starving,  so we need 
not be too concerned about  his apparent lack of calories ... at 
least not as an urgent situation. Mother's milk supply appears to 
need protecting, and building up, but she has milk, and it is not 
about to totally disappear.  We've ruled out pregnancy.

It doesn't look to me like a sudden drop in milk supply. When he was 
2 months old,  his weight gain started to be lower than expected. 
This might have been a physiological 'blip' -  no baby gains at 
exactly the same rate every day/week.

However, I wonder if it was at this point the mother started to do 
this 'force feeding' Jaye describes so eloquently in her second post 
- yikes!  The family are involved, and  there seems to have been a 
huge amount of anxiety and concern, possibly because of this fear 
that the mother is going to follow the previous experiences of the 
family.

Over a little time, this has become a nursing strike - made worse by 
the continued force feeding.

The behaviour Jaye describes is *classic* nursing strike - it's 
unusual to see this in a 4 mth old, but I do not think impossible.

I wonder what people think of these suggestions:

* make feeding comfortable, enjoyable and spontaneous for mother and 
baby (skin to skin and so on - if the baby only wants to feed when 
sleepy, that's ok, but hold him as much of the time as poss)
* stop the test weights (that's controversial, I know....but see 
above: we are not in an emergency situation here and we do not need 
to know what his intake is at every feed) which reduce the 
spontaneity, increase the anxiety of mother and baby, and 
micro-manage the situation unnecessarily (IMO)
* stop the formula top ups (again, controversial, but again, not 
necessary (IMO) because we are not in an emergency here)
* if mother wants to express, and can do so without reducing the 
opportunities her baby has to come to the breast, then yes, she can 
express and store  the milk for times when she really feels the baby 
has to have something
* co-sleeping, co-bathing....anything to lure this baby back to the 
breast so he starts to enjoy it again

 From the evidence Jaye gives,  I think this is a behavioural 
situation, not a hormonal/pathological/nutritional one.

Wd be interested in other people's ideas on this :)

Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc, tutor, UK

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