Hi Everyone,

Just wanted to let you know that Carole and I are flying tomorrow to the International Lactation Consultants Association (ILCA) conference in Sydney, Australia.

Since Carole was born and raised there, it will be an excellent opportunity for her to visit her family and for me to have an excellent tour guide LOL.

We're planning to return in about 2 1/2 weeks on Aug 14. Although I have the Aussie pak for internet connection there is always the chance that I may have difficulty receiving or responding to emails or even to post replies on the message board. So please bear with me if I can't get to your question in a timely manner.

I'm so proud of the way this board is working. Can you imagine it's almost a year since we jumped ship and moved here to our peaceful little corner of the internet? And everyone is getting along beautifully. This is what message boards are all about.

Success is not measured in ounces but rather by the effort we're willing to make to try to do what's best for our babies. I'm as anxious about my milk supply as the next mother. Just because I produced a nice supply the first time, does that mean I can count on a repeat performance? Only time will tell. But in any case, I'm happy just having the opportunity to try.

I wish everyone the best of luck in their efforts.

Fondly,

Hi Everyone,

I'm BAAACKK! From Down Under.

What an amazing, incredible, and WONDERFUL experience!!!
There are so many new and exciting things going on in the world of lactation.

The most exciting part of our trip was an invitation to visit Peter Hartmann, Ph.D at his lab in Perth. Dr. Hartmann is one of the premier researchers in the lactation field. He was very hospitable, and allowed Carole and I to visit with him and his team of researchers almost the whole day. The most exciting aspect of the visit was that he had Donna Ramsey do a sonogram of my breasts now that I'm 5 months into the protocol and found the milk making apparatus to be quite nicely develped. In fact, there was no apparant difference between my breasts and that of a fully lactating woman who was sonogrammed just before me.

I am able to express milk and so Dr. Hartmann took a sample and had it analyzed. The fat content was 14%!!!! So I'm all set.

Carole has also been in the process of inducing lactation because she wanted to help me. She could still express milk following the weaning of her son and so decided to do domperidone and pumping. She had been on her protocol for roughly two weeks when her breasts were scanned. The beginning of development and breast changes could be seen and she was able to produce enough milk for analysis as well. Her fat content was found to be 8%. Carole's been working really hard at this, using a battery operated pump while we were away and has doubled her milk supply since we returned home with the help of an electric breastpump.

Our visit with Dr. Hartmann and his colleagues was very inspiring. I must say that it was incredible to have some visible scientific validation for the work that Dr. Jack Newman and I have been doing since 1999.

While I was in Sydney I had the opportunity to meet many interesting and knowledgable lactation experts. Among them, Linda Smith, who is in my opionion one of the finest educators. And Denise Fisher and Renate Rietveld who are the great minds behind the Breast Ed Online Lactation Studies which can be found here www.health-e-learning.com. These are some of the nicest women I've ever had the pleasure to meet.

All in all it was a fabulous experience.

I want to thank each and every one of you for pitching in and helping each other while I was away. I was able to get an email through to Nona letting her know that I couldn't access the site for some reason and even though she's in the middle of a complicated potential adoption process, she's been here for everyone as has Owlhaven, Cathy, Dawn, Jen, Eden, to name a few.

Thank you everyone for your help.

Fondly,

HI Lenore!!!
Welcome back!
It sounds like you had an awesome time there and I envy you!!!!
The part about having your breasts scanned and breastmilk analized was really very interesting to me!!! Is this something that was done cause you happened to be there? Or can doctors do this at your request??? I would love to have this done.
Sincerely,
Rachel

Hi Rachel,

As far as I know, Dr. Hartmann's lab is the only one that is doing this kind of research but I'm way ahead of you. We're going to see if we can work out some sort of diagnostic test. We're planning to speak with Donna Ramsey to see if we can get our ultrasound teckkies to scan breasts. They do it now for cancers and cysts. But it's a specific technique.

Anyway...if we have milk, we have a milk making apparatus right?

Fondly,

True,very true!
I hope all works out well with the Donna and getting the techs to do this sort of thing,it would be great!
~Rachel

This is all very interesting Lenore, I hope the scientific advances in this field reach the UK one day! I wish you best of luck with everything. You're an amazing woman! <img src="http://www.asklenore.com/ubbthreads/images/icons/smile.gif" alt="" />
Love
Andria