Re: Medical knowledge needed.

On May 2, 7:16 pm, Lucy Kemnitzer <rita...@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On 2 May 2007 08:40:14 -0700, Nicky <nicky.matth...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
seems to have said:





On May 2, 4:16 pm, mkkuh...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Mary K. Kuhner)
wrote:
On Tue, 01 May 2007 00:49:05 -0500, Cyli <cyl...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
There are women who have babies born dead, who have babies that live
only days, that have enough milk for three babies but only have one of
their own at hand. Any of them might hire out as a wet nurse.

During the Oregon Trail Centennial festivities I heard a cool story
from the covered-wagon folks, apparently based on diary entries. A
young woman found herself caretaker of a baby whose mother had died
in childbirth. There was no woman around who would commit to being a
wet-nurse full-time for the baby, so she wandered among the wagons
with it daily, soliciting one-time feedings, and managed to keep it
alive.

I wonder how that worked? In the end demand and production seem to even out.
Perhaps all the women involved ended up overproducing a feed a day?

Breast milk production is extremely elastic in the average woman. An
extra feed a day is nothing -- you don't notice it until you stop.
(Been there. When my first was little, it was the fashion for
nursy-mother friends to nurse their friends' babies when they were
watching them. With my second, I donated milk to the premie ward. I
was not very good at expressing large quantities of milk. I could
only get three ounces or so a day. But when I had an extra baby to
nurse, I gushed. To this day -- and my youngest just turned 20 -- I
get the sensation of a letdown reflex when a small baby cries in a
certain way. It's amusing rather than disruptive, fortunately, since
I'm back doing center-based infant care and there's a small baby
crying in that way several times a day.)

I guess it might vary from woman to woman. I overproduced massively
with my first but thereafter never had a problem. I think I would have
noticed an occasional extra feed because the next day if the demand
wasn't there I would have had more than I needed -which I always found
uncomfortable at the least
My first day back at work I was late home and my mother gave my baby a
bottle - I couldn't get rid of the milk - cue mastitis and a week off
work. If mothers had been breast feeding a while the effect might be
less dramatic as there must be some daily variation in requirements
anyway. I think its probably easier to add feeds than to drop them.



It is eleastic but needing less than you have produced can

.

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