Thursday, June 20, 2013

Something new

I make it a practice to scan breastfeeding books every so often for new information on overabundant supply, plugged ducts, or mastitis.  Usually there’s not a lot of new information, but small helps here and there are worth finding, so I still do it.
Recently, while scanning one of Dr. Jack Newman’s breastfeeding books (I love that guy!), I came across a short paragraph on Evening Primrose Oil.  Basically, he’d heard that it helps protect against plugs, he’d tried it on a few people, he had no studies, but the anecdotal evidence looks good so far, so he thought he’d mention it.
Evening primrose oil is easy to obtain at a grocery store, so I got some that day and started using it.  Since then, I’ve had one small plug that had me resting for about half of a day, and nothing else.  I’m excited about this because I’ve been having two or three a month since February – or was it March?  In any case, the incidence of plugs has dropped dramatically, and that was with a road trip to Yellowstone that included late nights, early mornings, and some missed naps (on my part!).  I plan on continuing to take it, and will start recommending it to others based on my anecdotal evidence.  Of course, we all know that I’m not a medical professional, so check up on this yourself to make sure it’s safe for you.
As a bonus, it has helped my nursling, who sometimes suffers from constipation.  TMI, perhaps?  I guess I figure that if we’re talking about all the stuff we talk about here, I can just go ahead and say that evening primrose oil is supposed to help with constipation, too, and whatever it is that helps passes through the milk enough that Tess is benefitting from it. 
I love that Dr. Newman mentioned it as a possibility, because if he’d waited until there were large-scale studies, it probably wouldn’t be helping me now. 

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