Inability to produce any fatty hindmilk, all foremilk?

[smeep]

I have a friend who went through this with two children and another friend who went through it with one child. Both essentially said that, even when EBF (I know with block feeding for the first friend's second child), babies kept losing weight, and when both mums pumped it was literally all foremilk (even after put in the fridge there was no cream on top). Does anyone have any experience with problems like this? Or, better yet, any information on what might be the problem or how to fix/improve it? The second friend isn't having any more children but the first is planning on at least on more and she's having a hard time deciding if she even wants to try because it was so hard for her (and, yes, she did go to an IBCLC who couldn't help).

[CheriK]

I'm wondering if your friends may have been given misinformation. Usually with oversupply (when baby is getting excessive foremilk & not getting lots of higher fat milk), weight gain is higher than average, usually over 2# a month. Babies getting all "fore" milk still weight, usually a lot, but they're unhappy and uncomfortable because they also get such a large amout of lactose (milk sugar) and there's no fat to slow GI emptying. Block nursing would almost never be a good idea for a baby with inadequate weight gain, as it's sole purpose is to DECREASE supply. And fore/hind milk doesn't mean no fat vs. fat. . . the amount of fat in milk varies based on the time of day, how long it's been since milk was last removed from the breast, how "empty" the breast was. . .there's a good description at kellymom http://www.kellymom.com/bf/supply/fo...-hindmilk.html. Looking at a bottle of milk to see how much of a fat layer is on top is not an indicator that it's "hind" or "fore" milk (I remember going to a presentation by Peter Hartmann showing bottles of milk as a comparison - there was basically no visible difference between milk collected before and after a nursing session).

I would strongly encourage your friend to talk to an IBCLC with experience with low weight gain. She could help your friend explore what happened in the past and come up with a plan to help in the future.

[Megan73]

ITA with CheriK. You're friend needs to see an IBCLC.
It seems to be an unpopular view here on MDC but based on all the evidence-based BF information I've seen, babies don't gain because they're not getting enough milk, not that they're getting the "wrong" milk. Block feeding is the last thing moms of slow gainers should try.

[teton1898]

I know some moms over at the MOBI group did an experiment to increase the fat in their milk by increasing the fat in the diet (olive oil, avocados, nuts, PB, etc) and all said they saw in increase in milk fat by doing that.