From: pburch@swift.cellb.bcm.tmc.edu (Paula Burch)
Newsgroups: misc.kids
Subject: Re: breastfeeding
Date: 28 Jul 1992 03:06:31 GMT
Organization: Baylor College of Medicine, Houston, Tx

Daniel Kim (KIM@FLOVAX.LANL.GOV) writes:
	In article <T2uJoB1w164w@seaspray.welly.gen.nz>, 	
	kerry@seaspray.welly.gen.nz (Kerry Dalley) writes:
	>> 
	>> After all the pain I've suffered in nursing, here's a complicating 
	>> factor I'm grateful not to have! (The pain is *finally* getting 
	better--

Actually, that was me, not Kerry, but that's okay.
Daniel Kim (KIM@FLOVAX.LANL.GOV) writes:

	My wife went to a professional lactation consultant at our hospital
	shortly after our daughter was born.  She suffered intense pain during

	nursing, and the consultant told us that there should not be that much 
	pain on nursing, as long as the baby is latched on correctly and is 
	nursing normally.  With some assistance and baby training with an 
	orthodontic nipple on a bottle, the pain was relieved greatly.  It is 
	very difficult to find someone who really knows about the many 
	variations in nursing problems.  If you cannot find a real lactation
	consultant, you might try calling around to other hospitals, even in
	other states, to get a referral.

Mine was an unusual case. I had excellent advice and help from a lactation
consultant, but I still had terrible pain within one nipple that lasted three
months, due to an internal bruise (evidently) that formed when I let the baby
try to latch on when I was engorged. Your advice is still appropriate. I shudder
to think what would have happened if I *hadn't* known all about how to do it.
One friend told me her sister twenty years ago *tried* to nurse each of her
first three babies, but ended up each time with raw, bleeding nipples. If only
she'd known about getting all of the areola into the baby's mouth! And a couple
of other details. My mother did fine by reading Dr. Spock.

	The combination of a baby who cannot live on anything but mother's milk
	and a mother who cannot produce enough milk is very difficult.
	Fortunately (and here's the pitch) there are a few milk banks in this 
	country where mothers milk is collected and stored, frozen, for these 
	cases.  The milk is collected entirely from volunteer mothers, screened
	for disease organisms, pasteurized, and stored for shipment.  The 
	non-profit milk bank at the Womens and Childrens hospital in Denver has
	to charge $2.00 per ounce to defray part of the cost of this 
	processing.  We gladly pay this money, because it has meant the 
	difference between life and death for our child.

	I urge you, who have sufficient milk and time, to consider becoming a
	volunteer milk donor to the milk bank nearest you.  I cannot say enough
	to express my gratitude to those mothers who have fed our child. 

I would *love* to do this! I called Texas Children's last week (before I wrote
the above-quoted complaint about my problem with the excess supply) and spoke to
a woman at their "Milk Bank." What a disappointment! She told me that they do
not accept donations anymore, for fear of transmitting HIV or hepatitis B
through the milk, and that there's hardly a milk bank left in the country that
will accept donations. Pasteurization, as Daniel Kim reports above is practiced
by the Denver Womens' and Children's hospital, would completely eradicate any
risk, so I don't understand the problem.

If anyone knows about a place in or near Houston that accepts donations, or an
individual family who would be interested, please let me know. I've never been
exposed to AIDS or hepatitis B, plus I have a negative HIV test done anyway when
I was pregnant....meanwhile, I'm left with the absurd question of what *do* you
do with the excess, anyway? You *can't* pour such a precious substance down the
sink! Give it to the cats? Pour it on my cereal in the morning? :-)
Actually, Will's going through a growth spurt right now, so my discomfort is
temporarily relieved without the pump. In fact, last night I discovered the
convenience of having a frozen supply when Will had gotten all he could and was
still hungry. But how absurd that I should have a useless excess, and the
capacity to make much more with the aid of the marvelous Medela pump, when there
are babies like Daniel's needing the stuff!

Paula Burch
pburch@bcm.tmc.edu