Every year World Breastfeeding Week is from August 1st through August 7th and this year is no different! Breast milk is a renewable natural food. There is no packaging or waste associated with it. It is also a low cost way of feeding babies and doesn’t put a budget burden on a family’s household. In so many ways, I wish I could have breastfeed the whole time. So, I’m going to share my story with you.
My baby was born prematurely at 27 weeks. A lactation consultant came in the hospital room the following morning to get me started with hand expression and to go over breastfeeding and pumping. She gave me a bag of pumping supplies like the tubes and different sizes of cups. The consultant then had to show me how to use it all.
The first thing that came out with hand expression is called colostrum. It’s the most nutrient stuff which is what the baby needs first. Then the milk comes in after. Since my baby wasn’t able to suck on my breast due to her being so small and on the CPAP, I had to pump. Every three hours I would have to whip out my breasts and pump whatever milk I could get out of them. The hospital printed labels with my information on them and after each pump I would put a label on the containers that held my breastmilk. I would then hand them over to the NICU so they could store them.
When the NICU (Neonatal Intensive Care Unit) got the colostrum, they went ahead and started putting a few drops in my baby’s mouth every three hours until it was gone. It did take a while for my baby to start getting breastmilk so I did have quite a bit of breastmilk saved up. Once she had a feeding tube put in they started small doses (in mL quantity) of my breast milk and as long as her tummy was digesting it and not giving back a lot they increased the doses. I did get to actually breastfeed my baby when she was big enough and they were going back and forth between the tube and bottle feeding. We had to use a nipple shield because she was having problems latching. Finally, she was taken off the feeding tube and she was drinking out of the bottles (with my breastmilk in them).
The pumping process was a slow and daunting task. While at the hospital, I would go to the pumping room which had a pump sitting there along with sanitation wipes. I would sit my bag down and start with the sanitation wipes; wiping down the breast pump and chair. Then I would get my accessories out and plug them up to the machine. SHOW TIME! After 30 minutes the machine would shut off. Then I would bottle up my breastmilk and put a label on it. I always carried a little bottle of dish soap so after I was done pumping I would wash all the accessories; dry them and put them back in my bag.
At each pumping session I was producing around 4 ounces (2 ounces each breast). I know what you are thinking: That’s it? Yes, that’s all I was producing. I wasn’t making a lot of milk and in fact I was trying all the tactics I could find for example: Mother’s Milk, Kangaroo time, skin to skin contact, pumping every two hours, and etc. Nothing I tried seemed to help. So after four disappointing months of trying to produce more milk, I finally called it quits.
So to all the mommy’s out there that produced more than enough milk for your baby, Kudos to you! It just wasn’t in my deck of cards and my hat is off to you!
If you would like to learn more about World Breastfeeding Week, please click here.