So for the percentage of women with thyroid or pituitary issues, is it safe to give them meds or even just straight synthetic prolactin or thyroxin to boost supply?

I can only say that in my situation, I have a pituitary adenoma which caused me to start lactating about a decade ago....quite disconserting at the time! -Now, I have a massive over supply due to all the extra prolactin in my system!

We had a hard time starting to BF all the same as Logan had low blood sugar and was a sleepy baby for his first few days of life. On a few occasions in his first few days he went 6-8 hours without a feed just because he didn't ask for it and when we tried to make him take the boob, he'd rather sleep than suck. On top of that I was swollen up to what I'd say was at least an H-cup (settled on G now) and that coupled with small nipples gave the poor kid nothing to grab hold of. On top of THAT was the most unbelievable pain from my poor ducts being stretched out. On 2 occasions I was actually crying with pain whilst feeding him. I ended up hand expressing and syringing milk into the side of his mouth for the first few days and now we use a shield to help us out.

I was determined to keep going and persevere but I can totally understand how a less strong willed woman would find it all too hard and go for the formula.

I think Formula is not seen as an option for when you really, really can't feed but as just the other alternative to boob and that makes a lot more woman say that they 'can't' physiologically, when actually it's more about will.