Poor quality breast milk? Is this possible?

[Jasnem]

I am often told that I'm lucky that I must produce good quality milk as my ds is large, content, and exclusively breast fed.
Is this true? Do some women not produce good enough milk?

I think it is down to deceication and motivation on my part...am I wrong? Am I just lucky?

My presemt materity mum has found great supply from 4am to 6pm with 2 hourly feedings from 8am onwards but a real lack of milk from 8pm and so has introducted an express bottle at 8pm and a formula bottle at 11pm.

She di the rest, eat and drink well, lots of skin to skin and bed snugges but it in the last 4 days has become a very hard time for her and baby.

She planned to fully formula feed from late sept as returning to work.

With the intro of the 2 late bottles everyone is more chilled and having a better evening.

Another mum was feeding on the hour every hour day and night and they tried expressed and it was still the sam, baby was not getting good rest so introduced formula and now have a baby who sleeps 10-6 and is content.

Every mum is different, some i have been with had no quantity/quality issues and others struggled.

Congrats on your success Jasnem.

Jasnem, I have to disagree with matnanplus with regard to the implication that the milk of the mothers she worked with being somehow lacking in quality.

We know from a lot of research that mothers' milk is pretty uniform across the world in terms of quality. This doesn't mean it 'tastes' exactly the same, but its ability to nourish is unaffected by the mother's own health and nutrition except in extreme cases eg when a mother herself has been long-term untreated anaemic, when a mother is literally starving.

Rest, extra fluids, change in diet, make no measurable difference to the ability of the breastmilk to perfectly nourish a baby (though they are not 'bad' things in themselves!).

My guess is that your lovely large and happy baby is that way because he is 'meant' to be that way and you have responded well to his needs by feeding him so he grows the way he (as an individual) was born to grow. He is happy because he knows he has a mummy who loves him and who responds to his needs.

I'm sure if I knew more I could comment on matnanplus's mothers' situations, but I won't.

I'm going with it being luck Jas I seem to have been blessed in the same way and know that I am not doing anything particularly special to make it happen.

Tictok, present mum as i said was fine till day 24, baby fedwell then she started to struggle and cry at the breast and got very agitiated at the 8pm feed, she couldn't settle, fought the breast and everyone cried.

Last night, day 28 mum did a feed at 6pm and at midnight her breasts started to leak and she expressed almost 3oz, i know that volume expressed is not the same as baby is able to get but she was fine to feed baby at 5am.

Obviously if she could express more she would prefere to hold off on the formula for a while longer, but had planned to do at least 1 ebm bottle so dad and others could take a turn, she also has some work meetings to attend that would require baby to have bottle.

What would you suggest to boost her supply? as i said we did lots of skin to skin snuggles and baby sucked when she wanted to but it all goes 'tits up' come the evening.

Pastmum wasfeeding every 2-3hourswhen i left at the end of week 2, she called early thisweek, baby now 6 wks and on week 3 feedings became more often till by end of wk it was hourly.

With consultation with hv, sil she tried ebm bottles with the same result and so on advice from v moved to formula.

If i had been there what could i have suggested to her, she was not to keen on feeding for 15-25 mins every hour?

I know this is off the point of my original post, but are you saying this 4 week old baby was not fed from 6pm to midnight? Sounds like a long gap.

Sorry just re-read your earlier post about 8pm bottle. If she doesn't feed or express at 8pm then surely her supply will suffer. Wouldn't it help her supply if she bf first then gave the expressed bottle after if needed?

I've almost never let ds go more than 4 hours without a feed (except if he sleeps longer at night)

Thanks tiktok. I guess I just have naturally big children. (my dds are very tall, too)

She wasJasnem, and at this feed is where she experienced difficulties, baby would struggle, push away, get very upset, which is very not her and would suck then fall off crying, no milk present in her mouth, mum tried both breasts and it was just a horrid time for them both, mum can express at 8am and midnight with barely a drop from 12pm but a contented baby on breast alone at 4am, 8am, 10am, 12pm, 2pm, 4pm, 6pm.

And a bottle feed at 8pm and 11-1130pm.

baby had mild prolonged jaundice so we wake her to feed from 8am to 11-1130pm.

But to answer your question, Jasnem, my babies have all been fat little porkers on breastmilk alone. And I've not had to feed them every hour to get them like that.

Thankyou. I'm going to bow out and do some housework now I think, as my question has been answered.

My baby was feeding every hour or so for quite a while. He continued to cluster feed until he was over 4 months (at first it was from 5pm until 11pm, almost non-stop, he sucked even in his sleep!). And he's always been a skinny malink. I can honestly say that it never dawned on me to question the quality of my milk, nor my ability to produce the stuff.

matnanplus, the amount a woman can express means nothing - and the period of time you talk about is typical growth spurt time.

Skin to skin where possible, a babymoon, encouragement about her ability to nourish her baby - all more helpful than formula, IMO.

to answer the - "i don't think i have enough milk" and "is my milk any good" questions, please read \link {http://www.kellymom.com/bf/normal/growth-spurt.html\here}
please follow the links on the page for further information.

any health professional who tells a mum to top up with formula because their baby or suddenly not 'satisfied' with breast milk alone, needs to update his or her training.

they are doing the public a disservice.

shoot, just not doing links well these days
here

matnanplus, nothing you say in your post about what happened on day 24 indicates she had a problem with supply - but if she did have, probably totally temporarily, simply feeding the baby would protect the milk supply better than the offer of formula.

Crackers advice from HV to the other mother to use ebm - what on earth was that supposed to do, except make more hassle for the mother?

A baby feeding hourly is not abnormal, though of course it is hard work (nothing like as hard work as fully feeding ebm, of course) . I can't give any opinion, really, on what could have happened, without more info, sorry.

I'm a bit confused about which baby did what and when, have to say

But a mother who does not feed her young baby direct from the breast between 6 pm and 4 am (or express) is almost certainly going to have problems with supply.

after having had four HUGE breast fed babies i now have one not huge.
The B$%^&$ health visitor keeps STARING at me intently and asking questions about my diet grrrrrrr
I cannot beleive that the evolution of all mammals id such that it would make much difference what i ate. Any way thats beside the point but good question Jas

When ds2 was diagnosed "failure to thrive", and I was outright accused by the HV/locum GP of not feeding him (terrifying) and summoned to see the paediatrician, after they'd faffed about taking bbood from him and weighing him about 90 times, they decided my milk was inferior and ordered me to put him on formula, there and then - stop breastfeeding the same day. I did, because I was afraid he was going to be taken away from me. They'd already accused me af starving him. My GP said I wasn't "good milking stock" and said some women just aren't, like some cows aren't good dairy cows.

It turned out (after at least 15 tests, for everything from CF to leukaemia) that he had an RSV infection which he'd contracted in their filthy hospital (I'd been telling the HV/midwive/GP about his cough, and constipation and projectile vomiting, since his birth, but they didn't listen) and had had temporary milk intolerance as a result.

There are some crazy f*ckers out there masquerading as child health professionals, I'm afraid.

must also hold my tongue.....

Spit it out nothercules

cant say muchas dodgy keyboard. just wish everyone working with bf mums had uptodate training........

i need to hear it cos everytime i get those STARES i am one step closer to saying oh 'bollocks then' i feel like crap anyway and this DOES NOT HELP ME ...sorry to rant

dont see your hv,i dont.