Susan: I agree completely with your remarks about appropriate and necessary pumping. But if you go back and reread my post, I clearly state that I feel I am seeing an increase in early-onset mastitis as well as mastitis in general with INAPPROPRIATE AND UNNECCESSARY pumping. The examples you give are entirely APPROPRIATE AND NECESSARY situations in which one would encourage pumping. A mother whose baby is exclusively nursing well, not employed outside the home, and not separated from her baby who is pumping because "my girlfriend told me to" (this was told to me by one of my moms, honest, and she was fighting a wicked mastitis at 3 weeks) is not using a pump in an appropriate or necessary fashion. Viktoria's post (from the Ukraine) seems to bear out my hypothesis. Mothers are being encouraged to express or pump milk above and beyond their babies' needs. I think we all know that consistent overproduction is going to lead to engorgement, plugged milk ducts, mastitis, and in some (fortunately still rare) instances, breast abcesses. Two things I tell parents: "Your milk belongs in your baby, not the freezer" and "Too much milk is as bad for the mother as too little milk is for the baby". Pam Hirsch, RN,BSN,IBCLC Clinical Lead, Lactation Services Advocate Good Shepherd Hospital Barrington, IL USA *********************************************** 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(R) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html