hospital grade pumps

[Jennybean75]

HI im managing so far to express enough milk via hand pump for my DD who is just 11 days old. I am wondering about expressing longer term. Has anyone hired a hospital grade pump? Im managing to get about 3 oz each Br so far each time i express,( take me 20 mins) but know i will need so much more as she grows, and althopught i do want to give her the goodness of BRM i dont want to be tied to a pump all day. Do electric pumps give you a better, quicker yield? Any advise or experience welcome

How often are you expressing and what is the total daily yield? If you are only expressing 4 times a day then you may find you stop producing milk (or supply drops rapidly) pretty quickly but if you are expressing 8 times or more a day then that will keep you producing milk (especially if some of the expressing takes place overnight).

At 10 days old babies have a 60-80ml stomach capacity so 3oz each side is enough for over 2 feeds!

Also, are you bfing directly at all (i.e. are you mixing bottle feeding expressed milk and bfing or just bottle feeding ebm?)?

Kellymom.com has a good calculator for how much a breast milk fed baby needs and also lots of great information on expressing (inc. exclusively expressing).

Personally I found that using a hospital grade double pump was light years away from even a double electric pump BUT I was exclusively (or trying to be) expressing for my DD. If you are bottle and breast feeding a HG pump may be over kill, if you are only pumping for one or two feeds a day, a good manual way well be best (darn sight cheaper).

Im expressing with a manual pump approx 4 hourly. The thing is, she may be only 11 days old, but her demand is beginning to outstrip my supply. recently she will drink the full 4-5oz and then ask for more 2 hours later.I doubt i am losing more than 1oz to spillage down her chin! I wondered if this extra feed 2 hours later was just for comfort, but not so, only milk will satisfy. Perhaps i am not reaching the hindmilk and it is not satisfying her. I am not brfeeding at all, just exp milk via bottle with formula top up on the (ever increasing ) occasion when she needs more.

I you want to express allot, long term, I would definately hire a hospital grade pump. They are the only ones (as far as I'm aware) that can come close to mimicking the suction ability of a baby. Also you can often use them to express from two breasts at months. I think they are about £50 a month but if you have a local breastfeeding support group or surestart/NHS breastfeeding programme, they often lend them out for free. Good luck. Also, remember when expressing to stay really calm and relaxed. Stress to stop the 'let down' reflex. Good luck x x

I tried quite a few pumps (dd prem)
And the best for me ended up being the avent Isis manual

the baby will probably drink more from a bottle. It is easier to get the milk and they seem to keep going forever. Realised this from DD- 1 day old who drank about 60ml/2oz?? formula from a bottle that this was not what she would get from the boob. If you dont want to feed her at all long term (if you do just put her on the boob and that will increase your supply) just express regularly at 3 hrly intervals and make bottles up to the recommended amount. If your DD is in hospital they will work out how much milk she should be having based on age/weight/ & you can express accordingly. I did this for DS who was in hospital age 4 weeks but unable to feed so I expressed 3 hrly & they fed him the required amount. I used a hospital pump which was great but afterwards I bought a Medela swing which I found equally as good. With DD I had mastitis so hired a hospital grade pump from the NCT for a couple of weeks which worked out well.
Good luck x