Can't round up the research data for it at this hour - extremely impressed with Chris Mulford's (I think it was) command of minutes of effective pumping per day, etc - but a couple of things come to mind from my experience in working with moms pumping for a NICU baby: 1) If I'm remembering the beginning of this thread correctly, the woman with the really huge pumped supply was a teen mom, and it was in the early days post-birth. In my experience, young women (teens especially!) really commonly have huge supplies at first. Can't cite the physiology on why, but in evolutionary terms it makes sense to me - nature seems to really like us to produce our babies early, and ensuring an easy and ample supply goes along with that. I haven't seen this "oversupply" be a problem in the long run, though; I would take care to tell the mom not to panic when it/if it goes to a more commonly-seen (trying not to use the word "normal" here, as obviously this is normal for some moms) volume of expressed milk. OR hopefully she'll be able to get to nursing directly ASAP and won't have to measure! 2) Women pumping long-term: again, this is strictly my observation and clinical experience, not research-based, but in the moms I've worked with who've pumped long-term most have had better supplies if they pump on the less-often (3-4 times/day) side, rather than more often as of course we usually tell them to do. Worked with one mom who had a 24-wk baby (1#4 oz BW), baby had cerebral palsy and big-time respiratory problems and was never able to develop an effective latch-on-and-nurse-effectively pattern (although would nurse briefly occasionally, and frequently went to breast for comfort). This was a great mom - willing and able to try every intervention in the book; she pumped for over six months (the baby never had any GI problems, BTW!). She noticed lots of fluctuations with supply, but definitely found that when her supply started to drop, if she pumped more often than every 4 hours it would drop even further, pretty drastically. (Not to even go into the stresses this mom was facing - just coping with the needs of this baby and her 4-yr.old was a huge task, and I'm sure her life wasn't enhanced by having to pump!) We found that fenugreek and a "relaxation" tea did help, but only when she pumped LESS frequently (q 4 hrs or longer vs. q 2 hrs, which she would try every time her supply dipped). Other women I've worked with have found a similar thing - I always attribute it to the fact that pumping can be pretty time-consuming and stressful, and these women frequently have lots of time constraints (traveling to visit the NICU, hanging around the NICU for hours at a time without any place they really could settle in and feel like "home", coping with other young kids at the same time, worries about how the baby is doing, etc., etc...) Leads me to my current practice, which is to quote them chapter and verse on all the "right" ways to "manage" pumping, and then help them experiment with what works for them. And share with them what I think most of us have seen about expected "dips" at specific times: 2-3 wks., again at 4-6 wks., often again after about 3 months. Have others noticed these kind of "routine" fluctuations? Thank God for direct nursing, when we don't have to fret over every cc that comes out! Cathy Bargar, RN, IBCLC, with gratitude for the wide variety of mothers and babies I've been privileged to work with and learn from!