If a mother receives 2000 ml of water with an IV infusion within one hour of giving birth, her kidneys have probably not processed this fluid yet. This fluid, therefore is still in the mother's bloodstream. If the fluid is in the mother's bloodstream, would it not be at equal volume/concentration in the umbilical cord/placenta/baby? The reason I ask is, I attended the birth of a baby a few weeks ago. He weighed 4819 grams. Before weighing, he passed a large meconium stool, so it was not taken into account regarding his birth weight. By 24 hours, he was nursing well, and his weight was now at 4394, a loss of 8.8%. Within 2 hours of his birth, his mother received 2L of IV fluids. His umbilical cord was HUGE. If you put your middle finger to your thumb, it would encircle the cord. By day 2, the mother was being pressured into supplementing, despite good bowel movements, saturated diapers, audible swallowing. As a second-time mother with a good friend in the lactation field, she was able to get pertinent information and refuse supplementation. I am not discounting studies that suggest that labor fluids do not affect the newborn weight loss, ok, maybe I am. But, I am wondering if these studies are within the time period before the mother's kidney's ability to excrete this additional fluid, or at least move it out of the bloodstream, to where it is not as available to a baby via the umbilical cord. (metabolize it out of the baby, for the baby). Jeanne mentions separation and feeding problems, and it makes me think about stress and cortisol. If separation increases stress, stress increases cortisol levels, and high cortisol levels increase water retention, there must be something else at play during this interval in time. Best wishes from rainy Ohio, Heather "Sam" Doak *********************************************** 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