Preparation for birth: Will I be able to breastfeed?

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admin
February 8, 2010
in Startup Issues
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Yes. That was my answer to this question. After all, my friends who had babies were able to breastfeed without any major issues. It’s a natural act, I thought. I might not know exactly what to do, but the baby will, right?

Wrong! Breastfeeding is not something that comes naturally. It’s a skill that has to be learnt. Don’t get me wrong, I’d done my share of research and all my pregnancy books confirmed this point. I’d studied the pictures, the different positions and tried to imagine how to hold my baby. It was difficult to imagine though. I was uncomfortable with the thought of milk coming out of my nipples. It was just weird.

How to build up your breastfeeding confidence?

people-5908Was I confident about my ability to breastfeed? At first yes. I thought that if my friends had done it, I could do it too. My confidence dropped when I encountered the first problems at breastfeeding. I just couldn’t get my baby to latch on properly and as I watched the other women in the hospital lying down with their baby suckling on their breast I quickly became nervous. Why couldn’t I get it right? With nervousness came my lack of confidence. I felt ashamed every time I called in for the nurse to come to aide me and my baby at breastfeeding. I was upset at myself for not getting it right. At that stage I’d already lost all my confidence.

With my confidence gone, a chance to breastfeed also vanished.

“A woman’s confidence in her ability to breastfeed is crucial to her success”, claim Tine Vinther and Elisabet Helsing from the World Health Organization. They are right. This lack of confidence triggers a process chain:

Lack of confidence = negative feelings = stress = slow/no let-down = screaming baby = lower confidence = ….

How to prevent this from happening?

  • Recognize your struggle. Ok, so it’s just not working. No matter what you do, breastfeeding is just a nightmare. It’s painful and your baby keeps coming off your nipple and screaming. Don’t get mad at yourself or your baby. Give your little one a bottle of pre-pumped milk or formula to satisfy her hunger. Pump your milk in the meanwhile and try again at the next feed. Try to pinpoint the cause or possible reasons for this. Does it seem to be your nipple shape? Are your existing bruises making it difficult for you to relax? Once you pinpoint the cause, it becomes easier to find a solution.

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How to care for your Medela Pump In Style Advanced (PISA) for best performance

Published
Sara
January 18, 2010
in Startup Issues
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Medela PISAAre you wondering if your pumps’ performance has deteriorated? Has your pump lost its original suction or you just don’t feel as empty as before?

Caring for your pump is essential especially for exclusive pumping mothers. Just as the suckling of a baby determines a mother’s milk supply, the suction and the performance of your pump is crucial in determining and maintaining your supply.

Medela PISA definition of parts

Here’s how you can preserve your Medela PISA for best performance:

Check the membranes on your PISA

The membranes wear out depending on extent of usage. For some they need to be changed more regularly than others.

For exclusive pumping mothers I would recommend to change them every two to three months. With usage they also become thinner which negatively impacts your pumps performance.

To determine if it’s time for your membranes to be changed check them first for any wears and tears. If they seem fine, compare their thickness to your extra set or back up membranes. If they have thinned use your extra membrane set to pump next time round and see if you feel a difference. If yes, then it’s time to throw out the old set.

Inspect your PISA tubing for condensation

After each pumping session, quickly inspect the tubing. If you do see any condensation you can do any of the following:

  • Continue to run the pump with the tubing attached but unplugged from your breastshield connectors for an additional minute or so until the condensation disappears. (You can run the pump while you go to store away your milk)
  • Pour a small amount of Rubbing Alcohol in the tubing to dry
  • Use a can of compressed air (the ones typically used to clean keyboards) to blow out any moisture

Remove mold/milk from your PISA tubing

If milk gets into tubing, best is to insert it in hot soapy water and then rinse with cold water. If mold has formed in the tubes and doesn’t seem to get out with hot water, boil some water in a pot and throw the tubing in the pot. This should rinse out the mold.

Make sure the tubes are dry before pumping again. Either hang them to air-dry or if you are compressed for time attach the tubes to your pump and run it for two minutes or so until they have dried off. Rubbing alcohol gives you even a faster result. Just pour a small amount through the tubing to dry.

To avoid mold from forming in the first place it’s best to rinse the tubing in hot or boiling water once every week.

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Increase your milk production with hands on pumping

Published
Sara
January 5, 2010
in Milk Supply
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A hands-free pumping bra frees up your hands to do many things you love, like eat, apply your make up, read, play with your baby etc. but unfortunately also for things you don’t love as much such as work, pay your bills online, wash the dishes and the list goes on.

Research shows however, that if you put your hands to proper use you can notably increase your milk supply.

Why?

Simply because the more milk you remove from your breast, the more milk is produced. Neither a breastfed baby nor a pump can efficiently empty your breast, although the baby can certainly do a better job than the pump. The Stanford University Website provides a great video that actually shows you how you can use your hands while expressing milk using a double pump. The information in this video if put to practice, can significantly improve your supply and I highly recommend you watch it.

(Note that this material is put together by Jane Morton, MD and produced for educational purposes only)

To summarize

The video proves that the pump alone extracts significantly less milk than if you were to combine pumping with breast massaging and hand expressions.

hand expression during pumping

The results are shown in the above graph. Note that all the mothers participating in the research above pumped the same number of times and the same length of time each day.

 The results confirm that: 

  1. Mothers who solely relied on the suction of the pump extracted substantially less milk than those who massaged their breasts while pumping. Their supply also declined slowly as the weeks went by (black line)
  2. Mothers who used their hands to massage their breasts while expressing had a significant gain in milk supply. This supply continued to grow as they kept pumping and using their hands to massage their breasts (yellow line)
  3. The red line exhibits the supply of mothers who used the pump while massaging their breasts as will as hand expressing the remaining milk after their pumping sessions ended. They did the hand expressing only for the first three days after their milk came in, thus what differentiates these mothers from those of the yellow line is only these first three days of additional hand expressions. You can see the impact the few days of manual expressions had in their long-term milk supply which proves how important those first days are in building your long-term supply.

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Should you avoid certain foods while expressing breast milk?

Published
Sara
October 20, 2009
in Startup Issues
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Every baby is different. The general advice is that there is no need to avoid any food and that gas in babies are more likely not to be related to your food. In my case and in the cases of other mothers I have talked with, there seemed to be a high correlation between food consumed and gas in baby.

At the beginning, I just ate everything without thinking and as my son seemed to be a gassy baby anyhow, I didn’t think that avoiding any food could actually make it better. It was also difficult to track what I had eaten two or three days ago as I was making more milk than my little one needed so I had the fridge stacked up. I’d noticed that there were good days when he didn’t have as much gas and then really gassy days, as well as some days where he had a red rash and even some bleeding in his stool.

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To pump or Not to pump

Published
Sara
June 5, 2009
in Startup Issues
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How do you know if pumping is for you. Here are a list of reasons why you would want to look into pumping:

1. You have problems breastfeeding. Baby has latch on issues that don’t seem to be resolved. Baby not extracting enough milk

2. You can breastfeed, but you want to increase your milk supply or have additional milk in the freezer for when you like to go out, or you’d like to express so your husband can give the bottle

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10 tips to increase your milk supply

Published
Sara
June 4, 2009
in Milk Supply
. 4 Comments

1. Pump at least 7 times a day.
Best would be if you can get somewhere around 9 pumps in the first days. In my case I had started out with 7 pumps and got just a little milk out. I then increased to 10 times for a few days and then cut back to 9 pumps for about two weeks. This seemed to make a big difference in my milk supply.

2. Make sure you have a good pump and all necessary accessories.
Check your horn size. Most women need larger shields so make sure your shield is the right size for you. A good site that provides you with all your pump accessories is pumpingpals.com. They also offer a nipple measuring tool that helps you decide whether or not you need to go for a larger horn. Also make sure that you have a good suction with your pump. Some pumps when utilized so much by exclusive pumping mothers tend to loose the suction they had at the beginning. To get your suction back you need to change the membranes. Buy additional membranes in advance. If you are not sure if your pump is loosing suction just test with the new membranes. You will probably need them anyhow so this is a good investment.
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Pumping schedule and dropping pumps

Published
Sara
June 2, 2009
in Milk Supply
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The general recommendation that seems to work for most women is that for the first 12 weeks to pump around 8 to 12 times a day. The length of each session should be around 15 minutes or 5 minutes past your last let-down, whichever is the longest. In order to get your 8-12 sessions in one day, that means that you will pump each 2 or 3 hours in 24 hours. You can have closer pumping times during the day and longer stretches during the night.

These guidelines will help you increase your milk supply. By pumping so often what you end up doing is sending a signal to your body to produce more milk. Every time you empty your breasts, they start producing again.

The first 12 weeks are important as it is believed that during this time your supply is more easily influenced as your Prolactin levels (hormone primarily associated with lactation) are highest.

Freezing and unfreezing breast milk

Published
admin
June 1, 2009
in Milk Handling
. 1 Comment

There are various ways to freeze your milk, some of these are more costly than others. Here is a ranking of different ways to freeze your milk from the costliest method to the least costly

1. Medela freezer bags
2. Lansinoh bags
3. Ice cub trays and then transfer to Ziploc bags

When you want to defrost your milk best is to take it out of the freezer and defrost in the fridge. It generally takes about 12 to 24 hours to defrost. The defrosted milk should be used within 24 hours. You can then warm it in a bottle warmer.

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How to get your pumps in and have an uninterrupted pumping session

Published
Sara
April 9, 2009
in Startup Issues
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Best would be to stick to schedule and space your pumps evenly. However with a tiny demanding baby this is easier said than done. If you see yourself struggling and stressing to stick to schedule then make your pumps flexible. Remember being stressed out about your pumping will probably have a negative impact on your milk supply so if you find yourself stressed out just create for yourself a flexible pumping schedule.

Try to get at least 8 pumps in 24 hours. If you for example start the day pumping every three hours, then try to do every two hours as it gets later in the day. Just track the time you pump and then add two to three hours to that for your next pump. If it helps you, write a reminder and post it up somewhere within sight.

If you are alone with your little one and want to make sure that you can have an undisturbed pumping session you can try some of the following:

1. Invest in a baby swing.
This really seems to help distract your little one while you pump

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Tips to reduce chances of mastitis

Published
admin
March 6, 2009
in Mommy Concerns
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If you are prone to mastitis, the general concession seems to be that nipples should always be kept wet. At least this is what I was told at the hospital. If they are slightly wounded and you let the milk dry up, you create a trap for bacteria.

1. Use special compresses for the nipples.
There are different brands depending on where you live. Best is to ask your pharmacist for special compresses for wounded nipples. These compresses are wet and they keep bacteria away from the nipple, as well as constantly providing moisture. As these can be quite costly, especially if you have to use them during your entire pumping experience, it’s ok to change them once they dry up that way you don’t have to go through two packs every day.

2. clean your nipples with boiled salted water after each session

3. Use a special nipple cream (Lansilot) after each session