Another myth: Calories concentrate @ 3 hours.

[CoBabyMaker]

Has anyone ever heard this?  I can't find anything online supporting it and I have never heard this reasoning behind why people schedule nursing.  I was talking to MIL tonight and she said that her ped. told her that the calories in breast milk concentrate after 3 hours.  I just said, "Oh, I've never heard that before.  That would be strange since it's digested in 1.5-2 hours."

[Llyra]

Do they mean that its caloric content somehow changes at three hours? As in delaying feeds will somehow produce higher-calorie milk? That's total nonsense, and displays a serious ignorance about the biology of human lactation. That is in fact the opposite of what actually happens.

http://www.llli.org/faq/foremilk.html
http://www.kellymom.com/bf/supply/milkproduction.html#research

the fat content of human milk will be higher (and thus its caloric content will be higher) if feeds are frequent and the breast is emptied often. The less stored milk you have behind the nipple, early in a feed, the higher in fat the milk baby actually gets will be.

This sounds like another faux-argument to convince mamas that they should feed on a schedule.

[sapphire_chan]

Maybe it means that after 3 hours a baby will take in more calories in that feeding than they would've done if you just fed them when they first asked? E.g. very very hungry baby eats more than normally hungry baby, on a feeding to feeding comparison.

Of course, if there was some study showing that, I would have to wonder why they didn't compare total calorie intake over a 24 hour period between those feeding on demand and those feeding to a schedule.