"There is no harm in allowing a baby to have supplemental formula until the milk is in."

I beg to differ. Marsha Walker wrote an excellant article about the effects of introducing non-human milk products to the neonate gut.

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We do not see the phyisolgical norm in hospitals in relation to birth and breastfeeding. The birth experience can impact the breastfeeding experience to an enourmous degree.

Keep baby with mom. Too often ignorance reigns regarding the the need for mom's biology to have baby around. Tt is more than you push out your baby then milk comes out your boobs. You can't just look at each as independant beings...the mother baby dyad is just that a dyad, they are symbiotic and eacha re dependant on the other for complete the hormonal balance.

Until that is recognised by hospitals and women in general, we will continue to see women have difficulties breastfeeding

Also colostrum is does not have a huge amount of fluid in it. Babies are born with extra fluid on board to level out the playing field of needed fluid for survival (hence the weight loss after birth). If an infant is nursng all the time it is priming the breasts prolactin receptors so that that the mom can make milk. Take that baby away and feed it so it does not stimulate it's mother breasts and those receptor sites shut down...and then what happens...the mother goes home and is not making as much milk as she should.....and down the slippery slope we go.

What we need is consistant care by consistant caregivers a common understanding of the biologogy of the hormones of childbirth and lactation giving consistant information.

And yes mothers who have breast reductions can breastfeed. My friend was one and actually produced more milk for the second child!

http://www.bfar.org/ this is the orgnaization for breastfeeding after reduction.

I always say, if the intentions are to keep all normal and the baby is kept at the center of all the choices (and the mother and baby are idealy kept together) ....then the right choices will always be made and everyone will be happy...especially the baby. And sometimes that means doing something other than exclusively feeding breasmilk.

(I nursed twins with one breast and never gave supplements they nursed for well over ...well they nursed for a long time).