Oversupply of milk for prem baby in SCBU

[notimefors]

My DS is taking 350ml per day at the moment. I am expressing 8 times a day and making about 1400ml per day.

I am a bit concerned about the huge discrepancy and how we will adjust once he is home - maybe next week. I am worried about my body reacting to the change and also whether it could affect the quality of milk for DS who is not having to work for all his feeds at the moment as he is tube fed at night and part of the day.

Does anyone have any advice? Would it be safe to pump the same number of times per day (8) but stop when I reached maybe 100ml per expression?

My instincts are telling me to try to get things more equivalent now in preparation for home. But I don't want to mess things up.

I do plan to donate milk also.

(I posted in premature too.)

Ask the staff about donating the surplus to the milk bank. They need loads!

Will he be fully breast fed when he comes home? If so, I'd imagine your supply will adapt itself very, very quickly.

Can you freeze the excess milk for home? If you decide or need to continue feeding by expressing once you get home, breast milk freezes well for months. You can get breast milk freezer bags ..

I froze my excess whilst ds was in scbu. it came in very handy later on. lansinoh freezer pouches were very good

Do you think it'll just settle itself with no problems then?

I was fearing engorgement, mastitis, the milk being designed for a much bigger baby than DS actually is and this not feeding him properly, my body thinking the baby has suddenly shrunk or gone so my supply going into freefall...

I am going to donate but I don't want to have to pump a litre a day as well as feeding which is the surplus at the moment.
The milk bank won't take anything yet as DS is too young and I have to be screened.

There are wiser people than me on this, as i have never soley 'pumped to feed' however i know from reducing or giving up breastfeeding, your boobs are very clever and adjust their supply according to what the baby (or the pump) asks for. So if you pump very efficiently, which you are clearly doing!, your boobs are producing a good amount of milk. As and when you are able to start feeding your baby by breast, your supply will adjust naturally, but you might get engorged whilst your baby's needs adjust your flow. You can help engorgement by gentle hand expressing to take off the uncomfortable excess, cabbage leaves etc
But the boobs do adjust quite quickly.
On the flipside, i had to give up breastfeeding quite quickly recently and was advised by breastfeeding counsellor and hv to go from full breastfeeding to every other feed (with the others being formula). I did get engorged but hand expressed when needed etc, and the worst of it was over in about 2-3 days, then my boobs had cleverly adjusted to the every other feed. Then i was able to cut out the remaining ones. It was quite amazing how the supply adjusted and the reduced so quickly.
Sorry a long ramble, but to just show how clever your body is!

For now, i'd be delighted that the milk supply is so good, so when the time is right, you're all set for feeding from the breast, and for the meantime you're building up great supplies for feeding now, and freezing for later . Good on you! And all the best x

this was me. DD was in SCBU for 3 weeks and I was pumping 3 or 4 times what she needed.

I stopped pumping as soon as she got home. it was a bit messy for a few days as I recall - I leaked a lot and had to massage a few lumps out of my boobs under the shower. but my supply very quickly adapted. in fact it dropped so quickly i was worried I was drying up (I wasn't, I was just adapting to her true needs).

I froze the extra that I pumped while in SCBU - it was an absolute godsend later as it meant DH could do some feeds while I grabbed some sleep (as DD went through a long phase of only sleeping on my chest).

to be honest once he is home (or at least once he is over the preemie sleepy phase) you will not have time to express 8 times a day! don't worry, your supply is very adaptable.

This is very common. When dd2 was discharged from scbu I took 80 (yup, 80) bottles of frozen expressed milk home with me from the scbu freezer.

We all lived to tell the tale, and I have to say that my boobs were the last thing on my mind!

I am slightly paranoid about him coming home then not putting on weight I guess, for whatever reason, because that happened with DD and was a problem for weeks.

But I should remember he is a different baby! And DD did put know weight in the end!

oh oh oh this was sort of me - please seek advice about slowly reducing. you may need a careful plan to allow your milk to balance out. we had a horrendous time with over supply which caused very bad wind, frothy poos and burns on his bottom. 'lactose overload'. been a nightmare and may have also masked tongue tie.

I'd call a breast feeding help line or a local la leche league leader - if possible someone with the top training qualification. have a look on kellymom website too.

Thanks Clarella. A totally different reply, and very useful.

I had this, the were giving ds 30ml per hour though! So obviously when I switched to ebf he took a lot less.

I did have to hand express a bit off sometimes, it reduced the encouragement but didn't fool my body into supplying even more.

As minipie said your boobs adjust really quickly and I was actually worried because they went so soft but it was fine. For some reason expressing exclusively makes you quite engorged. You will definitely be grateful for a stock in the freezer.

Hope he comes out soon SCBU is very stressful

The best advice I ever got - however, my situation was different to yours - was to build up a stockpile of milk in the freezer. It's really good to have extra breast milk frozen. You don't need special bags, sturdy freezer bags work well. Our freezer had a glass shelf, and I used to get out as much air as I could, close the freezer bag and then laid it down flat on the glass shelf. So the milk froze in the bag as a thin sheet. I labelled all my bags with the date the milk was expressed and frozen, and stacked them in a box, like pieces of cardboard, oldest milk in the front, newly frozen bags added in the back.

Another fabulous piece of advice I got, which may or may not be useful to you, was to feed on one breast and pump on the other. It doesn't work for everyone, and you may not need that much milk stored, but it worked for me. I was worried DS might be put off by the sound of the pump, but he didn't seem to notice it. It's a bit tricky, holding baby with one arm and the pump on the other side, but not bad once you figure it out.

Apols if not relevant to you.

Good luck with your little one! I hope he comes home soon .

yes, I think oversupply masked tongue tie in my DD's case too. so do get checked if the latch seems poor and your DS takes in lots of air, even if weight gain etc is fine.

if there's one thing I 've learnt about bf since my ds was born its that everyone is very different - pumping an extra 80.ml per day and then stopping was enough to really unbalance us. definitely chat to specialists and keep a close eye on baby's poos - you want mostly or all yellow, too many green and you might have a problem.

hope all goes well :)