Vanessa writes of a 6 d.o. infant, baby #6 in birth order, and mother says her milk did not come in and there is "not a drop" of milk there. Rule #1 is feed the baby. Please do not delay in doing this. This can be a very bad downward spiral. Use donor milk as first choice. Use nursing supplementer if baby will latch. (of course mother can choose other alternates as well or use whatever is needed to get milk in the baby). Rule #2 is support the milk supply - you need to have the mother see her primary hcp to evaluate for retained placental fragments, r/o Sheehan's syndrome (did she have excess blood loss or hypotension at the birth?), endocrine dysfunction (thyroid, pituitary, diabetes). She can continue regular pumping. With 5 previous successful lactations, surely something is amiss. BTW, In cases like this, where there is virtually no milk, I have not seen success w/ use of herbs or prescription galactagogues (metoclopramide). Rule #3 is fix the breastfeeding. (Well these are sort of how I've adapted Coach Smith's wonderful rules.) That is, get the mom and baby bf together again. Which she can actually be doing w/ the supplementer. But I say this because some use cup, finger feeding, or bottle as the alternate in step 1. Good luck helping this mother. Laurie Wheeler, RN, MN, IBCLC Violet Louisiana, s.e. USA ______________________________________________________ Get Your Private, Free Email at http://www.hotmail.com *********************************************** The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(TM) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html