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expressing annoyance

Hi ladies,

As you may know my baby George was born 28 Nov 09, weighing 4lb 10oz. I hired a medela electric breast pump as used in SCBU but was upset a cpl of wks ago when my milk supply seemed to go down image the HV said oh didn't you know that mothers who express aren't able to breast feed as long!! I'm lucky to even get 30ml from both sides combined now and George wants between 70-130ml per feed. As he was so small and dropped down to 4lb 7oz I wanted to make sure he was having enough milk to try and catch up so hired that machine. I'm handing the machine back next month when my month's fee runs out, I'm just annoyed as I still wanted to be able to breast feed and have that closeness with George it feels a bit like it has been taken from me. xjx

Replies

  • have you been to a breatfeeding clinic? i would definately recommend it. they can give you tips on how to increase your milk supply. like herbal tea. i know Napiers sell one specifically for breastfeeding mothers. also brewers yeast. it tastes disgusting but its worth a try. obviously expressing more often helps too. at least every 3 hours.
    if all that fails you can do what i did and ask your GP for domperidone. It is actually an anti-nausea medication but has lactation as a side effect. the nurses in the nnu told me about it and it was amazing!
    my daughter was born at 26 weeks and my milk started to dry up after about 5 weeks. it had almost stopped when i tried this. almost immediately i was expressing loads. i started trying to breast feed when my daughter was 9 weeks old but i never quite got the hang of it. so i expressed for 6 months. you are probably not supposed to take this medicine that long but i just wanted to help my daughter. the dr had given me a 2 month supply but i cut back on the dose and made it last 6 months. you could maybe just take it until you have gotten the knack of breastfeeding.
    don't give up on the breast feeding because it would be a lot easier than expressing and give you that closeness with your son. i wish i had persevered.
    good luck
    Lauren
  • I think the midwives also said to me that my milk woudn't keep coming in for so long if I just expressed : ( I BF and expressed for the first 3 weeks, and then just exclusively expressed, and my milk started to dwindle after about 6 weeks, to about 2/3 of what I got to start with. I also used to put my LO to the breast as much as possible, with skin to skin contact to try and boost my supply.
    Like Lauren says above, maybe you could try and get the docs to prescribe something to help too?

    Some expressing machines to seem to be better than others though! I bought a Medala one for about ??90, and although it was good the one the hospital had that was about 40 years old, I kid you not(!), worked much better even if it was a tad uncomfortable! Do they have any you could pop in to use at the hospital that are any more productive??

    Iz & SKye x
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