EBM question

[Trudyla]

Hi all,

I hope someone can help me with this question.
I am breastfeeding my daughter (6 weeks old). She is gaining weight well but breastfeeding doesn't come natural to us, so it's a real struggle to get her to latch properly and she comes off very often. It takes ages to feed.

I am happy to do this at home but would never dare feeding her elsewhere since I'm basically flinging my breasts around trying to get her to drink.

I would like to feed her some EBM if I have to be outside but I'm not sure about transporting it. Do I have to keep it cool? How can I keep it cool? And how long can I have a bottle of EBM out of the fridge before it goes off?

Thanks in advance for any help.

Trudyla

Hi I am on my mobile phone so cannot add a link but the breast feeding network has a good online leaflet with all the info you need. I keep it saved and refer to it all the time. Expressed milk can be out of the fridge for up to 6 hours. So if you express and plan on feeding within this time you don't need to put it in a fridge or cool bag. The length of time that expressed milk will keep in your fridge depends on the temp of your fridge. After I while your milk will start to look as if it has split. Don't worry this is normal. Just swirl it round to mix it together again. Hope this helps. Alot of places have feeding rooms for breastfeeding mums so you could give feeding a go in these rooms to build up your confidence to feed in public. Most shopping centres have them. So do john lewis, Debenhams and some larger boots stores.

EBM's own anti-bacterial properties mean that it actually keeps well out of a fridge. I used to have to go to London from Glasgow when I was feeding ds: red eye flight down and back up by about 7pm.

I would express while I was away (fortunately this was in the days before the liquid bans) and didn't use an insulated bag and the milk was always fine.

Here's the leaflet from the BfN about expressing and storing milk. Your bump to breastfeeding dvd, that you should have got from your midwife, has some info about expressing too.

Do you have a clinic/cafe with BFing support near to you so someone could talk you through achieving a good latch? It would really help. Have you asked your HV about it, she should be helping you?

It does get easier, soon you'll be able to latch her on without even looking.

I just express milk into small bottles (4oz bottles) and put them in the freezer. When my mum was looking after him she just stuck one in the bag, and asked for hot water in starbucks etc when it was time to feed him. Took a couple of hours to defrost - that way no coolbag etc was needed.

You could also get a bottle warming flask thing, they are reduced in tescos.

Thanks all for your help.

It's great to know that the milk will keep for quite a while. I also have some bags for freezing so that's a great tip as well. I will try and do that.

My midwife checked out my latch and said it looks fine. It's just that my daughter doesn't want to stay on all the time so it's a bit of a struggle. But I'm hoping that we will get the hang of it over time.

Until then I really don't want to bf in public, even in designated feeding rooms. I would feel really uncomfortable and would stress about it.

But there are some great suggestions about the EBM and the leaflet is very useful as well.

Thanks everyone.

T