Can women remember when their milk came in?

The perception of the timing of milk arrival has been identified as an important predictor of breast-feeding success. Because this indicator has the potential to be used as a proxy for the onset of lactogenesis stage II and is relatively simple to measure, it is possible to include it as part of large-scale surveys. It is unknown, however, how likely women are to recall the timing of milk arrival accurately, several months after delivery. To test the validity of maternal recall, we conducted a longitudinal study in Hartford CT with 192 women who delivered healthy, term singletons at Hartford Hospital. All women were interviewed daily from day 1 postpartum until they perceived that milk arrival had occurred. Seven months after delivery, women were able to recall if their milk came in late (i.e. >72h postpartum) with a high level of sensitivity (93.6%) and an acceptable level of specificity (62.5%).