A serious pregnancy complication sent first-time mom Missy Boss into an emergency cesarean section; by the time she delivered, her blood pressure was at pre-stroke levels.
In the 56 hours after coming home from the hospital with her son, Boss never slept. Missy decided to give it a try. Exclusive pumping—feeding your baby only breast milk, only from a bottle—is traditionally the territory of mothers whose babies are in the neonatal intensive care unit or otherwise medically unable to suckle directly at the breast. These moms, like Boss, were unable to establish a successful breastfeeding relationship despite their best efforts, but they still wanted to feed their babies breast milk.
The practice of pumping frequently or exclusively is continuing to grow. According to data from the latest iteration of the Infant Feeding Practices Survey , among U. What most moms may not know is that beneath the perceived convenience of pumping, there are potential consequences both for workplace norms and for the health of themselves and their infants.
Such protections include reducing the incidence of gastrointestinal illnesses, upper respiratory infections, asthma, obesity, both types of diabetes, and certain childhood cancers. Part of the problem is a lack of research. Most papers discussed expression for sick or premature infants; the rest were commentaries calling for more research. Boss admits that, at first, she was worried about missing out on some of the benefits that breastfeeding ensures: the bonding, the closeness, the skin-to-skin contact.
Expressing milk means extracting milk out of your breasts so you can store it and feed it to your baby later. You can express breast milk by hand or with an electric or manual pump, whichever is more comfortable for you.
After you've expressed your milk, you can either give it your baby straight away, or store it in the fridge or freezer. If you do not need to express your milk straight away, it's best to wait until you and your baby feel happy and confident with breastfeeding before you start expressing milk regularly.
No matter how your breast milk is delivered to her, it provides the best nourishment possible at a time when such an advantage makes a big difference. 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. If you want to continue to provide your baby with breastmilk , a breast pump is an effective way to establish and maintain a good milk supply. There are many reasons to pump breast milk. If you have a full-term, healthy, breastfeeding baby, you can wait a few weeks to start pumping and storing breast milk.
If your baby is preterm or ill and cannot breastfeed yet, or if you have chosen to exclusively pump, pump as soon as you can after birth, preferably within one to six hours of delivery. Remember, a quality, electric breast pump is essential to breast pumping success. Learning to pump can be a daunting process.
These steps will set you and your baby up for success. Keep going! It may take some time to achieve this target, do not worry about hitting this on day one!
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