Increasing Your Breastmilk Production
This is a list I've compiled from my own experiences and from email
from other breastfeeding moms over the past 2-3 years. If you have other
suggestions to offer for increasing milk production and/or pumping yield,
please email me at ceciliamiller@bellsouth.net.
A very basic concept that must be understood in order to approach a
supply problem is this: milk production is a delicate balance of demand
and supply. This distinction between supply and demand versus demand and
supply is an important one to note. Milk production (supply) is DRIVEN by
demand - from the baby or from a pump. If the milk manufacturing glands
are not stimulated by breastfeeding and/or pumping often enough throughout
the day and night, they do not get the "signal" that milk is being
demanded so that milk should be manufactured accordingly. Please keep
that concept in mind as you read the following tips and try to incorporate
as many milk gland stimulating activities into your daily life as
possible.
- NUMBER ONE MOST EFFECTIVE WAY TO BOOST YOUR MILK SUPPLY: Nurse every
chance you get while you're together, day and night. Don't be afraid to
offer the breast, even if the baby doesn't initiate it.
- Make sure you're getting plenty of calories, fluids and rest. You
simply cannot make enough milk without these three things.
- If you're not already doing it, sleep with your baby. If baby smells
breastmilk during the night, he'll be more likely to wake up and nurse.
Most nursing moms get to the point eventually that they can get baby
started nursing without really waking up completely so Mom isn't totally
exhausted all day. ;) If your partner objects to having baby in your bed
or you don't feel comfortable having her there, please consider finding
some other arrangement that will keep baby near you during the night.
See this
article to find out about sidecar arrangements or other things other
families have found that worked. Please read the Academy of Breastfeeding
Medicine's Guideline on
co-sleeping and breastfeeding, especially the section on
recommendations for making co-sleeping safe for the baby.
- Nurse baby the last thing in the morning and the first thing in the
afternoon, and allow him free access to the breast at home in the evenings
and days off.
- Don't use pacifiers/dummies/other artificial suck objects. If baby's
sucking instinct is satisfied that way, he won't be as inclined to nurse
for comfort (which provides extra stimulation for milk production). You
may hear disparaging remarks about your baby using you as a "human
pacifier", but that is very wrong-headed thinking. What is the purpose of
plastic pacifiers? They were made to be used by babies (and parents) to
substitute for the human nipple - NOT the other way around! Your baby has
a natural instinct to suckle... let her do that on the "real thing" as
much as possible, not on a plastic substitute.
- Let the housework and laundry go as much as you can so you can nurse,
nurse, nurse.
- Make sure you have a hospital-grade pump. It may seem expensive to
buy or rent one, but it's cheaper than the $1200-$1500 you'll spend on
artificial baby milk in ONE YEAR if you don't breastfeed!
- Double pump.
- Pump after feeding at home when you can manage it.
- Pump more often at work. If you can't get away to nurse baby on your
lunch hour, add another pumping session. Three pumping sessions or two
pumping sessions and nursing baby at midday are generally recommended at a
minimum.
- Relax... while you're pumping and any other time you get the
chance!
- Spend a weekend relactating (do nothing but nurse, sleep and be waited
on by your family or friends).
- Make a tape of baby cooing, crying, whatever special noise he/she
makes. Play the tape on a personal tape player/walkman while you're
pumping.
- Take a towel, blanket or item of clothing that smells like baby to
work with you.
- Put warm compresses or paper towels on your breasts right before
pumping.
- Manually massage your breasts to encourage letdown.
- Pump in a warm, clean, private location.
- Pump one side while baby suckles on the other. Be aware, though, that
this requires some level of coordination which some women are not able to
manage. It works better in the early months, before the baby knows what
that pump noise is, where the on/off switch is and how to pull the tubes
out of the bottles. :)
Breastfeeding and the Working
Mother
Parenting Resources
© 1998 Cecilia Mitchell Miller, unless
otherwise specified. All rights reserved.