I saw multiple lactation experts, starting in the hospital. And yet, I still felt pissed off. No organ always works. The current conversation around breastfeeding is a trap. A week or so after learning of my glandular issues, I talked to my doula on the phone. I thought she just wanted to check in, so I monopolized the conversation, updating her on feeding and sleeping, mentioning I wanted to write about it all. Finally, she broke in with her own message — she wanted to apologize.
She was taking classes to become a licensed lactation consultant, she explained, and during that first, abortive breastfeeding in the delivery room, she had also clocked my tubes as a potential issue.
Like the lactation consultant, she had not mentioned the specifics of her concern — that I might not be able to properly breastfeed. At this point, I wondered who had looked at my breasts and not thought that I lacked mammary tissue.
My college boyfriend? My high-school locker mates? It reminded me of the conversation that the lactation consultant and I had had at the end of her second and final visit. As she was packing up her scale, she paused. I had told her early on about the words of the first consultant, and it was starting to sink in that she probably had also noted my potential limitations a week or so before delivering her expert opinion.
Good question. Without speaking for all of my tube-breasted sisters, I would have greatly preferred clarity. Breastfeeding is amazing and important ; I would have still tried all the pumpings and feedings and maybe even desperation-Amazoned some herbs, but it would have been such a relief to get the full story about potential obstacles.
I would like to have the first thing that I learned about motherhood to have been something else. Already a subscriber? The premature milk is higher in protein and minerals, such as salt, and contains different types of fat that she can more easily digest and absorb. Premature babies who are breastfed are less likely to develop intestinal infections than are babies who are formula-fed. The milk you produce in the first few days contains high concentrations of antibodies to help your baby fight infection.
Even if your baby cannot breastfeed yet, expressing breast milk from the beginning will ensure that your milk supply is maintained until your baby is able to nurse.
Your first step in providing your baby with breast milk is to enlist the support of the medical personnel who will care for your infant at the hospital. Your doctors can arrange to have your expressed milk fed to your baby or for you to breastfeed your infant in the neonatal intensive care unit NICU.
Many hospitals now provide private areas for nursing and trained specialists to assist breastfeeding mothers. These experienced members of your support team can show you how to assemble and use an electric breast pump, teach you to express milk efficiently, and give you advice on storing breast milk. Many neonatal intensive care units encourage parents to room in continuously and keep the baby skin to skin , sometimes referred to as kangaroo care, because this has been shown to be beneficial for stability and optimal growth and development of premature babies.
Breast milk pumping, or expression, immediately after holding your baby skin to skin is a very effective way to increase your milk supply. If your newborn is too small or ill to breastfeed at first, or if a birth condition prevents her from breastfeeding directly, you will find that a hospital-grade electric breast pump is an effective way to express milk and establish and maintain an adequate milk supply.
Your hospital will provide you with a pump while you are there, and you can rent or purchase one to use at home later. The pump you use should create a milking action and not simply be a sucking device. Aim to pump at least six to eight times a day; this provides nipple stimulation and encourages milk production. You should pump at regular intervals throughout the night for the first few weeks, and not sleep for more than four or five hours at a time.
If you wake up each morning and your breasts feel full, then you are sleeping too long through the night; this fullness will actually diminish your milk production. Using a double-pump setup lets you express milk from both breasts at the same time. Most women find that the double pump produces the most milk in the least amount of time.
When using the pump, continue to pump for several minutes after your milk has stopped flowing to stimulate increased milk production. For mothers of preterm babies the minimum amount of time to try to pump throughout a twenty-four-hour period is one hundred minutes. This much breast stimulation and milk expression is the minimum required to maintain breast milk supply over many weeks if your baby is very small, premature, or ill.
Breast massage before and during the use of the pump has been shown to improve your milk flow and may even boost your milk production. Low milk supply is usually a temporary situation that will improve with appropriate breastfeeding support and management. Making more milk is all about supply and demand — the more milk is removed from the breast, the more milk is made.
The less milk removed, the less made. Talk to your doctor, lactation consultant, breastfeeding counsellor or child health nurse about these options. You can call Pregnancy Birth and Baby on for advice and support.
Learn more here about the development and quality assurance of healthdirect content. Expressing milk means squeezing milk out of your breast so that you can store it and feed it to your baby at a later time. Breastfeeding is the most natural way to feed your baby, providing all the nutrition your baby needs during the first six months of life and a loving bond with your baby.
Breastfeeding mums can have breastmilk oversupply and breast engorgement. Check feeding patterns, techniques and positions.
Hand-expressing can also help. Read more on raisingchildren. Here are some ideas to help you work out if your breastmilk supply really is low and some suggestions that will help you make more milk, if it is low! Read more on Australian Breastfeeding Association website.
Galactagogues are foods, herbs or medications that can help to increase breastmilk supply. Find top breastfeeding tips and answers to common questions, including advice on how to increase your milk supply and weaning your baby. Read more on Tresillian website. With considerable dedication and preparation, breastfeeding without pregnancy induced lactation might be possible.
Normally, the natural production of breast milk lactation is triggered by a complex interaction between three hormones — estrogen, progesterone and human placental lactogen — during the final months of pregnancy.
At delivery, levels of estrogen and progesterone fall, allowing the hormone prolactin to increase and initiate milk production. Induced lactation depends on the successful replication of this process. If you have months to prepare, your health care provider might prescribe hormone therapy — such as supplemental estrogen or progesterone — to mimic the effects of pregnancy.
Hormone therapy may last for months. About two months before you expect to start breastfeeding, you'll likely stop hormone therapy and begin pumping your breasts with a hospital-grade electric breast pump. This encourages the production and release of prolactin. At first, pump for five minutes three times a day. Work up to pumping for 10 minutes every four hours, including at least once during the night. Then increase pumping time to 15 to 20 minutes every 2 to 3 hours.
Continue the routine until the baby arrives. If you have a short time to prepare, hormone therapy might not be an option.
Your health care provider might recommend other medications to help induce lactation. Pumping remains important for whatever time you have.
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