How do you know if you have delayed onset of lactation?

Dr Pamela Douglas9th of Oct 202422nd of Feb 2025

Copious milk production, which usually occurs by the fifth day after the birth, can't always be measured by a feeling of fullness in the breasts. This is because if your baby is feeding frequently and flexibly, you mightn't experience breast fullness when your milk comes in.

Fullness of the breasts might also signal that you've had an overshoot in milk production beyond what your baby needs, and the fullness is in fact dialing down or calibrating your supply.

But if you're not offering your breast often enough to your baby, the supply may dial down too much and then not meet your baby’s needs.

If you don’t have copious milk production by the end of day five, measured by baby’s throughput and baby beginning to gain weight well, we refer to this as delayed secretory activation. There are a number of causes for this, that your health professionals will screen for. You can find a list of possible causes here.

Next up in when your milk comes in

What you need to know about baby weight gain in the first two weeks of life?

Your baby can afford to lose up to ten percent of his or her birth weight in the first week after his birth, if he is not born prematurely.

Although the research tells us that a weight loss of up to 15% may occur in some babies without the baby's safety or health being threatened (as long as you are offering breastfeeds frequently and flexibly), your baby will need to be under the care of your health professional after 10% of birth weight is lost. This is to ensure your baby's safety, as your milk production increases and your baby turns around her weight gain.

The very large World Health Organisation research study which was used to create the WHO growth charts showed that successfully breastfeeding babies gain about 200 gm to 250 gm a week...

How do you know if you have delayed onset of lactation?

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