Yeah, my mum had all the 'bad' advice back then too. Feed 4hrly and only for 10 minutes. OMG.. no wonder she ran out of milk.

I think weight gain is a very deceptive means to judge how much your baby is getting. Some babies just don't put on a lot of weight, and most breastfed babies by NO means put on weight like FF babies, and unfortunately breastfed babies are compared to FF, people like to see chubby babies, and the charts used are based on FF babies too. I stopped getting Tallon weighed a long time ago. I knew he was getting enough coz of all the nappies I was changing!

I think the body going into shock is a very valid reason. Sometimes the stress of lack of support or problems adds to the lack of letdown etc, and it can become a vicious cycle, the less you make, the more stressed you get, so the less you make.

Like Kelly said, 95% of women can physically breastfeed, it's more likely to be external factors these days (like lack of support & info) that would contribute to women thinking they're part of the 5% that couldn't feed.