Dear Zena I am catching up with my mail and see no responses to your question of letdown with headache. ----------------------- > I have a mom that has already nursed a daughter for a year and is now > nursing a 3 wk old son. she has very painful let-downs this time and when > she let-downs she also gets a headache at the back of her head as well as > profuse sweating and body odar. She said that is so severe that she is > considering weaning soon. Does anyone have any suggestions to help this > mother? > Thanks. I have an article byAskmark and Lundberg, 1989, in which the authors describe a single case studied where the mother had pulsating headache late in pregnancy (with more than one pregnancy) and then within 2minutes of beginning nursing and for 5 -7 mins duration. The headaches disappeared after weaning. It was speculated that the headache was due to this rise in oxytocin associated with the nursing episode, and not some vascular type mechanism as is associated with migraine headaches. The NMAA TAlkabout March 1999 also cites an story of lactation headache, where there was a family history of them. They worsened with letdown, and the mother eventually decided to wean because of the distress they were causing her. A comment was included that breastfeeding management which lessens the impact of both prolactin and oxytocin on the mother may positively influence the severity eg reducing the length of feeds, minimising other breast stimulation, maybe limiting feeds to nutritive suckling only, and possibly restricting feed frequency as well . In any case the mother needs heaps of cupportive input, and encouragement as well as information about how she can best meet her baby's needs within the confines of the situation. > *********************************************** > > *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] 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