As I have been lurking many months at Lactnet, let me introduce myself again. I am Elien Rouw, a Dutch medical doctor, living and working in Germany in the mother and child health care and in a breastfeeding support group. I also train medical health workers. I also observed, that better nourished women had an earlier return of menses. A very old, but good article on this is: Lunn, P.G., Austin, S., Prentice, A.M., Whitehead, R.G.: Influence of maternal diet on plasma prolactin levels during lactation. Lancet 1980 (i): 623-625. In this article it states, that prolactin preferentialy brings protein, carbohydrates, vitamins and so on to the milk. It is especcialy important, when mothers are marginally nourished (as was in most of our human history). "If prolactin acts by preferentially channelling nutrients to the breast for milk synthesis, higher levels of the hormone are likely to be needed to ensure adequate milk production in undernourished mothers than would be necessary if the maternal nutrition was good. As nutrition improves less hormone will be needed to maintain similar milk production rates." For me it is one of the reasons (as is infrequent feedings, artificial nipples, and so on), that fertility in the western world (in general) is not so reduced as it is in other parts of the world. Elien Rouw, MD, Bühl, Germany. *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html