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Breast-feeding is the best start for our babies but sometimes for personal or medical reasons a woman never starts breast-feeding. In these cases colostrum will be made, but if you do not feed your child, or remove the milk by expressing, the production will stop quickly on its own. The breasts will engorge with milk and may become painful but the production soon stops.

This will usually happen within a week and all that is required for pain relief is hot or cold flannels and ordinary over the counter painkillers. On the one occasion I had to stop breast-feeding quickly (after two days) most of the milk had stopped again after another three days. Drugs designed to prevent milk flow have nasty side effects and do not work any more quickly than nature in these circumstances.

Breast milk production is stimulated by breast milk use, either feeding or expressing. In the ideal world you should be able to stop feeding by cutting out one feed at a time to reduce problems. By cutting out one feed, usually at first the middle of the night or the middle of the day the body naturally reduces what is produced at those times. The first few days will lead to some discomfort as your body adjusts, but it will quickly reduce adapt and make less milk at those times.

At the same time as cutting out a feed you should be introducing solids. I found that as the night feed was the one I most wanted to say goodbye to it was to my advantage to give the first solids at the evening meal as these took a while to digest and my babies slept longer as they were not hungry. At the same time I offered a little food before each breast feed to reduce the amount of milk they took at each feed, and so naturally reduced my milk requirements. Very quickly, within a couple of weeks, they were all just having a comfort feed at night to go to sleep.

I was probably lucky that my babies took to solid food so easily but the basic principle is the same even if they are fussy. Increase solids at each meal and reduce the breast and milk production stops. At this stage is a good idea to ask some one else to feed your baby, or give them a drink from a cup or bottle, as this helps them to try new foods without the temptation of their usual food source close to hand.

While trying to get your body to produce less milk you can experience engorgement, or may be it is necessary to stop feeding quickly. The traditional way to relieve engorgement and stop milk is to place chilled cabbage leaves inside your bra. It sounds

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