Right, I'm getting my head round this gnome balloon analogy to explain the
way when and how the baby gets the foremilk and hindmilk...and I hate to be
picky, but it sorta falls down - sorry, Kathy!  - and it's a real shame
'cos it sounds pretty good!  That's the trouble with analogies....

Why?

Two reasons -

1. The milk is basically the same milk - it is not produced in two
different parts of the breast in two different ways with two sets of
ingredients  - unlike the pink and yellow balloons which are presumably
made separately and coloured separately, and brought by the gnomes in two
separate consignments : )

2. The milk is made at the mother's end - that is, she makes the pink
balloons at the wall end of things, and some of them *change into yellow
balloons*  at the baby end of things.

I find mothers - and health professionals - end up thinking the milk is
made according to two separate recipes, one high in fat and one low in fat.

I sometimes say foremilk is milk that has trickled down the ducts, and the
way the water trickles down the sponge (in the oil and water sponge trick,
which I think is a more consistently 'true' analogy) reflects this....but I
am looking for an analogy that really helps with the 'more frequent feeds
equals fattier milk' thing, to illustrate the dynamics of milk production
and the baby's role.

Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc Newcastle upon Tyne UK

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