In the hospital, they take your baby away from you, stuff them with formula, and then bring them back a few hours later, sound asleep. I think it’s important to be nursing your baby every couple of hours during those first few days, in order to establish your supply early. The suckling is what cues your breasts to produce milk.

I had an emergency C-section, but still nursed my son minutes after birth, and did not allow him to stay in the nursery overnight. I nursed him every time he woke up or started rooting around in his sleep. I doubt he got much of anything, but that little bit of colostrum is so important. On my last night in the hospital my milk came in. My breasts were so full and uncomfortable, and LEAKY. My son was in the nursery being “checked up” or whatever, and when they returned him they had given him a bottle so he had no interest in eating and I had to pump to relieve the pressure. From that point on I never had any issues with supply (though I had latch issues, cracked and bleeding nipples, we got thrush a few days in, and I was actually producing too much milk and the foremilk/hindmilk imbalance gave him tummy upsets for a few weeks). I attribute my ridiculous supply of Mommy Juice to actually having the opportunity to let him suckle. Otherwise, how does your body know it needs to?

Melodies last blog post..My First Award and Love Links

Great post! It’s exciting to read about the results of your research, and I agree that it’s fascinating to dig a little bit deeper with these kinds of social phenomenon, especially when there are obvious cross-cultural differences.

My biggest take-away personally from your post is your point about the value in seeking out support structures while you’re still pregnant. I actually didn’t do this with my second child because I was lucky to have an easy time with my first. Fascinatingly, Little D actually had a harder time, and it underlined for me that many of the problems women have initially with breastfeeding are actually out of the scope of their control. It’s so easy to judge ourselves when breastfeeding or weight gain isn’t progressing as we’d like. Yet though we can seek help and support, we are actually not the ones doing the feeding, it’s our babies!

I also agree that it’s important for that magic statistic of 5% be more visible in our culture, both because it clarifies for many women that it’s worth trying all their options as their chances are good, and because it reminds us all that 5% does exist — there are real biological problems that occur for 1 out of every 20 moms.

That having been said, I’ll end with an interesting anecdote that echoes Evelyn’s comment about stress. My mother herself may have been one of those 5%, and she still mourns her inability to breastfeed to this day. One of the support systems she personally had back in the 70′s was actually that of her mother-in-law, my paternal grandmother, who was from the Philippines and moved to the U.S. as a nurse in the late 60′s. This is what Grandma Espie had to say:

“Jan, what are you doing? Why are you doing all this work? You just had a baby and you need to rest. You shouldn’t be doing anything. You should lie in bed and eat soup. In my country, when the mother has the baby, she doesn’t cook, she doesn’t go anywhere. Someone does these things for her. You should lie in bed and eat soup so you can make more milk.”

A traditional remedy we can borrow here? Maybe we need to start telling the daddy bloggers about this one!

Hope (of hippie dippie bébé)s last blog post..Is it Wrong to Openly Support Breastfeeding?

Low milk supply is quoted as the number one reason women quit breastfeeding. But the problem is that too few people understand how milk production works (http://www.kellymom.com/bf/supply/milkproduction.html) and too many of them think they have low milk supply or don’t know how to increase their milk supply (http://www.kellymom.com/bf/supply/milkproduction.html).

Often when people think they have low milk supply, they supplement. But supplementing is a slippery slope for a few reasons. First, it looks like the baby is hungrily gulping down the bottle, when really it is a sucking reflex when drinking from a bottle that forces one suck to be followed by another. It is a common reason why bottle fed babies (whether getting formula or breastmilk in the bottle) are overfed. Second, every time you give your baby formula and don’t pump in place of that formula feeding, you are decreasing your supply. The more formula you give, the less breastmilk you will make, and the more formula you will have to give.

Annie @ PhD in Parentings last blog post..BlogHer ‘09

@Tiffany – Yes, actually the story Sommer shared on her blog about Colleen raised a red flag for me when I wondered why on earth she would be led to believe she should have any milk 24 hours after delivery. It was 3 days for me. Liv lost 13oz in the first week but I had her to my breast every 1.5-2 hours to stimulate and soothe her regardless. Once the milk came in I continued to feed her on the same time schedule rather than a 3-4 hour routine many use. I believe this really helped my milk come in strong and abundant. I too would be interested in more research re: 5% and possible factors like health, toxins, in-vitro etc…Hmmm.