Lactation failure
Introduction
- Inadequate milk production → kittens fail to gain weight.
Presenting signs
- Kittens crying, restless, weak, lethargic.
- Kittens show poor weight gain.
Acute presentation
- Mastitis Mastitis.
- Signs of systemic illness in queen.
Age predisposition
- Young - inexperience.
Special risks
- Death of kittens due to starvation.
- Severe mastitis Mastitis → debilitation/death of queen.
Pathogenesis
Etiology
- Mastitis Mastitis.
- Failure of milk letdown ; idiopathic prolactin deficiency or psychological inhibition.
- Anatomical; absent/blind teat or undeveloped mammary glands.
Predisposing factors
General
- Age.
- Temperament.
Specific
- Same as mastitis Mastitis.
- Nervous, inexperienced queens, ie psychological/physiological failure of milk let down.
Pathophysiology
Poor milk production
- Physiology of inhibition of milk let down due to stress (nervous queens) is poorly understood.
- Mastitis Mastitis → mammary gland malfunction (absence of normal lactogenesis (the onset of lactation) and lactopoesis (the continuation of lactation)).
- No mastitis: assume poor milk production due to absence of suckling (absence of normal lactopoesis)/ endocrinological breakdown (poorly understood).
- Abnormal prolactin metabolism important in agalactia since pharmacological agents that suppress prolactin, eg bromocriptine , also suppress lactation Pseudopregnancy.
Timecourse
- Variable.
Diagnosis
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Treatment
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Prevention
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Outcomes
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