Exclusively Expressing

[Lynders]

Hi. I have recently created an information leaflet for mums who either choose to or have to exclusively express their breastmilk. I have been doing so successfully for over 6 months now. IT IS POSSIBLE!!

email me if you would like to read a copy of my leaflet.

[email protected]

Or find me on Facebook, Lynda McClean, Belfast.

Do people REALLY thing EE is going to be easier than EBF? that is simply insane! Its the worst of both worlds. All the faff of sterilising etc and being tied to the sofa for hours at a time. My LO took an hour to drink 3-4oz, then I'd have to spend half an hour pumping... then half an hour later it would have to start up again, and I was lucky if I'd been able to put him down in between!

EE worked for me for 12 weeks, and it DID get easier as I was lucky and produced loads of milk, but I will not be sorry to stop (although I'm finding it very hard to drop the last couple of sessions).

Cobweb I have read it time and time again on MN (first time mothers who are pregnant and feeling anxious about BF for one reason or another, usually). I even had a RL friend tell me that she was going to do it with her next baby, after seeing me do it I think EE has a reasonably high start up rate due to people experiencing trouble with BF, but a very high drop out rate as it is just so bloody hard for most people. A friend of mine is trying to express what she can for her baby, who was born premature and wouldn't BF, but she is not having a lot of success despite doing her level best, and is giving a lot of formula.

Lynders, I think what you are doing is great and as long as you make it clear that you are not an expert and are just sharing your experiences, and point people in the direction of qualified help, people will respond really well

I would never suggest that EE is easier than BF but its an option for those who cannot or choose not to bf but still want their baby to receive breastmilk. Human Milk Banks provide donar milk to premature babies in hospital and its something I have been very proud to be a part of over the past few months, I think its an amazing set-up.
I think I've been explicit in outlining my situation, 'qualifications' and intentions. For anyone who would like advice, a chat, tips/hints that worked for me or simply want to hear the words that EE is possible; drop me a line. I'll be very pleased to share my experiences. I received little info etc from healthcare providers as there isnt much literature or much advice available on a very under-highlighted issue. If you find yourself in a similar situation, drop me a line. I really hope everyone understands my intentions. Im not an expert on EE. Im just a mum who has successfully fed her baby by EE and would like to empower and enable others to do the same if its possible.

:)

I am feeding my 3 week old DS by EEing. He has a tongue tie and a very poor latch. We are working on improving the latch and he has an appointment in 2 weeks to have his TT assessed and possibly snipped. Pumping is time consuming but at the moment I have over a litre of EBM in the fridge of which I am really proud! I am curreclty using a hired Medela Symphony, but ongoing rental cost is a factor so I am looking into buying a Swing to keep the pumping up once the symphony goes back. The BFing advisor and peer supporters have just been great, and have kept me motivated to carry on. Not being able to BF was really hard to deal with and it broke my heart to hear my DS scream with hunger. In the early days he had a few top up formula feeds and that was also very difficult to come to terms with. Now we are exclusively on BM and DS is thriving. It will be difficult to keep up with the pumping now DH has gone back to work, but I seem to be getting more from fewer pumping sessions so hopefully it won't be so labour intensive.

Lynders I have emailed you.

an updated leaflet now availabe which now includes a section on hints & tips!! Hope this is helpful.
Lynda

Best of Luck Lis

Hi Lis,

I certainly empathise with your situation and the emotional rollercoaster of not being able to directly bf! I've just updated my leaflet today to include some useful tips. it sounds like u have a good supply so its a case of training ur body to hold more milk for longer so u can express less frequently. There's also advice re hands free pumping. Try cuttin holes in an old bra and using it to hold the pump funnels in place!! Then u can feed ur baby and pump at same time. Feel free to get in touch.

Lynda

I'm bumping this as I think I need a support thread to keep me going with the EEing. I have mastitis and was ready to throw in the towel last night. Got antiBs now and things are improving.

So sorry you've got mastitis. Hope you've got a 10 day course not a 5 day ne though. Do you know the cause of the mastitis?

Do you use breast massage before a feed or compressions during or hand express ever? Those techniques can be used to speed up getting rid of mastitis if it is caused by a plugged duct or a pressure point on the breast.

Kellymom has some good info on dealing with mastitis here.

HTH

I EEd for DD1 for a year, including whilst pregnant with DD2. Have a look in archives under my name as there was a support thread about this about 5 yes ago.
I bought an excellent book, Exclusively Expressing Breadtmilk, which gave some great tips. I also wrote an article for a local NCT magazine and would be happy to share this, if it would help.
As others have said I too went on to successfully EBF DD2 for 18mths. Even though I thought I was an advanced expresser after DD1, I really struggled to express for DD2-however she never took a bottle/cup so I stopped trying after a while

its a 7 day course I have of amoxycillan(sp?). The cause, I think was just not expressing enough or for long enough over the weekend. We were staying with my parents and visiting other family. Where BFing would have been fine in all these places, hauling my Medela symphony around with me wasn't practical! By the time we got home last night my boob was almost in a different postcode. I just can't do that again

While expressing I massage and compress. Well as much as I can when it is very painful at the minute. My boobs are on the large side so I find I need to change the angle and position of the pump to get the "best" yield. It's not a one handed job!

Tomorrow is my first day on my own with DS. Wish me luck!

You can get hands free pump tops/bustiers that mean you can double pump whilst doing something else. They also make it easier to massage/compress whilst expressing.

Or you can make your own from a old bra/crop top and cut out holes to fit the pumps through (tip - cut a hole big enough to fit the end that the bottle attaches to not the bit that goes on your breast).

Warm/hot flannels can help with expressing if you are having problems at the moment. Also massaging down from any blockages towards the nipple can help too.

If you are planning to express mid/long term then learning how to hand express would be a good idea as if you get stuck somewhere with out the pump you can still feed baby with out problems (perhaps carrying an empty sterilised bottle in your change bag just in case). I found it invaluable when DD3 was unable to nurse as she was too ill and the hospital was unable to locate a working pump I tried 3 pumps that were broken before I gave up and hand expressed.

Good luck for tomorrow and don't forget if you have to stop pumping and leave the milk in the pump to deal with baby pull out the hoses out of the back. I was always forgetting to do that and they would tip over as the hose flexed (or you could use the bottle stand that comes with the pump )

Wow, this is the thread I've been looking for!
My first baby was born on 14th May and although I managed to give her very small amounts of colostrum in the first 2 days BF, as soon as the proper milk came in and the breasts became engorged, I found it impossible to breast feed and DD was screaming with hunger. A few days like that was so frustrating watching her trying and failing to latch on.

I used a manual pump to relieve the pain of engorgement and then realised that EE might be an option after buying a Medela Swing. It's working quite well so far - DD is having approx 100ml per feed, 8-10 times a day (does that sound about right in terms of quantity?). Approx 5-6 feeds are breast milk and the rest formula, but each day I'm trying to reduce the amount of formula.

Lynders thanks so much for highlighting EE - like many others on this thread, I couldn't find any info on EE in my baby care books, and haven't heard of anyone else who has used the EE method.

To me, it's the best of both worlds - DD gets breast milk, and I get the flexibility of being able to get DH to do feeds too. I'm honestly not finding the time it takes to pump a hassle at all so far (it's a good opportunity to MN at the same time!).

What I don't understand is other people's reluctance to see that EE is ok.
I met a breast feeding counsellor the other day by chance, and told her I was expressing and that it was working well, to which she replied 'oh but why don't you try to go along to a breast feeding counselling session to see if you can learn to do it' etc.

Even DH has been saying 'why don't you try again with breast feeding, it might make things easier'. Erm, easier for whom exactly? Ive said that I'm finding EE easy, so why bother to go through the trauma of trying to get DD to latch on again, and me and her both being frustrated? I love the fact that with EE I know exactly how much milk DD is getting.

Surely as long as babies are actually getting breast milk, it doesn't matter HOW they get it?

You're right tigerbear (great name btw) but I can say there was a stage where expressing with DD was the easier option by far. However after a few months I did to the stage where BF direct was clearly the easier option, so it can get better. Whatever the decision going from fully bottle fed to BF is a rough ride and you're not wrong to fully express (or indeed FF),

There isn't a right or wrong, just what's best for you. Plus I had the advantage of feeding going well for a couple of months before our problems started.

Good luck to all of you :)

Hi Tigerbear, I'm 2 weeks futher along the road with EE than you are. DS was born 30th April. I found the first weeks quite easy. DH was at home on PL, we weren't really going out anywhere just trying to get used to having this perfect little human being that hand landed into our life. I had the time and freedom to get my supply going on a strict 2 hour pumping schedule. However, at the weekend, we had to travel 150 miles back to where we are from to stay with my parents. We had to go as my grandad was very ill in hopsital. There wasn't the same oppertunities to pump when we were away and although DS was still easily fed when we were out and about I became engorged and ended up with mastitis. I'm beginning to realise that EEing will restrict my freedom slightly if I can't get DS to latch even some of the time. I can't see me ever going to exclusively BF, but to enable me to get out with my baby, I see that it will be much easier to do a mix of both EEing and BFing.

The issues we have with the latch appear to be due to DSs tongue tie. We have a appointment to have it assess and possibly snipped a week on Friday. I know it wont automatically solve all our problems, but if it can make things slightly easier that would be great. Don't dismiss BFing right now is what I'm trying to say. Have loads of skin to skin withyour DD, let her root about without offering her boob. DS are doing this and he no longer gets in a state if we do try to latch on. He remembers what he can get from me there and if only he could latch I'm sure he would. Accept all help offered, if thats a BF clinic then go. They won't make you do anything you don't want to but can advise and assist. I found just having someone sit and watch me try to latch DS on and confirm I was doing it right helped me relax and in turn kept DS calmer during the attempt. BFing I feel is all about confidence, if you are confident, and there are no other issues, you DD may pick up on it and become a natural.

People always say BFing is the most natural thing in the world, what they sometimes forget is that it isn;t always the easiest.

Hope this makes sense, it's a bit of an epic! Good luck!

Tigerbear - I think why people are a little bit cautious about EEing is because whilst it does have most of the nutritional/immunological benefits of bfing directly, it also has the risks of bottlefeeding - the risk of obesity due to overfeeding and the changes to the oral cavity (anthropologists can tell if a skeleton was breast or bottle fed due to the changes in the oral cavity).

It's certainly better than bottle feeding formula (not that that it a terrible thing to do because it isn't) but if you can bf directly then eeing not the preferred method of feeding.

There are things you can do to minimise the drawbacks of eeing - wiping baby's saliva on your nipples prior to expressing to trigger the production of baby-specific antibodies, cup feeding instead of bottle feeding, doing feeds skin to skin, not increasing feed amounts as baby gets older (bf babies of 1-6m of age take between 19-30oz a day with an average of 25oz - each baby has their own 'normal' amount be it 21oz a day or 29oz a day and this stays the roughly the same for that time period), feeding responsively with pauses to allow baby to develop satiety cues and not over eat.

I am in no way bashing eeing as I have done it for DD1 and DD3 but it should be a means to an end not the destination of choice IYSWIM?

Hey all, I'm bumping this discussion up again as I've seen a lot of expressing questions creeping up. Again, hope this helps and dont hesitate to contact me. :)

I breast fed my twins for around a week until my nipples became so sore i dreaded the bf experience. I got so upset at the thought of giving them just formula but i just couldnt face them coming anywhere near my breasts.

Thankfully my health worker suggested hiring a pump from www.medela.co.uk It is a double pump which does both breasts at the same time and it really is a God's send. In 20 minutes i can usually get enough to feed both twins, however as they are constantly feeding i do have to top up with formula at night. The hire price is £40 per month, but it is definitely worth it for those who want a good breast pump. They use it in hospitals too.

I do feel a bit guilty that i dont exclusively bf them as they do root and stare at my boobs, but they just dont seem to latch on properly. And at least they are getting breast milk this way.

By the way mums, what is the amount that a 5 week old should have? My twins have 130 ml of breast milk every two hours, they appear to be constantly starving though. Should i be giving them a bit more?

Elizabeth - This should help you work out how much to offer.

TruthSweet - thank you

Elizabeth, emial me and I'll send you my leaflet, I think it may help with some of your queries.

Hey all,
I see a lot of you looking for expressing info again so I'm doin my bump the leaflet thing again. Email me for a copy or advice. Im still going strong with a morning and night express producing around a litre of milk per day. Still more than feeding my baby and still donating to the human milk bank!! Its possible!

Lynda

Bumpin this up again, hope i can help any expressing mums.

hope this helps for expressing advice!!