Happy Saturday to all! Last week at my LLL meeting, a mother-to-be, expecting her 3rd baby in July, came into the room. I was immediately taken with her appearance -- she was very tall, with a large frame, and extremely masculine features (facial and bodily). Her hands were especially large. As the meeting discussion progressed this mother shared that she had been unsuccessful in breastfeeding her other two children -- that the 2nd baby had been "very happy" at the breast "24 hours a day" but was diagnosed failure-to-thrive after the first 10 days (having lost more than 10% of birthweight and not gained anything back, also did not poop at all after discharge from the hospital). This mother had good lactation support after that 2nd baby. She claimed her "huge nipples" were the problem. My immediate suspicion was that she has hypoplasia, and I looked at her breasts after the meeting to see for myself. If there is hypoplasia, it was mild -- maybe type 1 or 2. My gut, though, is telling me that there might be some other hormonal issues at play because of her extremely masculine appearance. I'm posting here to see if there might be some research on this out there that I can review, or if anyone else has seen a similar situation. She denied any PCOS or diabetic issues, reported "very little" breast changes during pregnancy or postpartum. She says she is the only woman in her family who did not breastfeed a baby and she feels like she's missing out on a lot -- she really wants to breastfeed this time. I'm giving her as much information as I can for her to share with her support people (LCs, doctors, friends, etc.) but my gut is telling me I'm missing a very big piece of the puzzle. Thanks so much for any insights you can share! --Diana in NY *********************************************** Archives: http://community.lsoft.com/archives/LACTNET.html Mail all commands to [log in to unmask] To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or [log in to unmask]) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet or ([log in to unmask]) To reach list owners: [log in to unmask]