Not able to express as much :(

[mapetitpuce]

I really struggled with BF to begin and was expressing and topping up, BF has now been established nicely and I have reduced expressing to once per day, in the mornings, to use for the occasional top-up or to freeze for future. I was pretty consistently getting 70ml or so, but in the past week this has reduced to only 20-40ml. Seems pointless to express so little, is this normal for it to reduce? Does it reflect an overall reduction in my milk supply? DD is now 7 weeks old and feeding well but HV not 100% happy with weight gain.

TIA

Expressing yields can reduce over time, but this is quite early for it to happen....are you feeding direct often day and night and offering both breasts at least once each every time?

OTOH, maybe weight gain is fine - has HV said why she is worried? What are the weights over time?

Thanks tiktok; she feeds every 2-4 hours day and night, and still feeds a lot in the evenings. Plenty of wet nappies and seems pretty content after feeds, but not always 'milk drunk'. Always feeds from both breasts and feeds for 45-60 mins per feed.
Was on 50th centile at birth, now on 9th, however, gained 60g in 6 days when weighed on 14/4, then 380g in 17 days when weighed on 1/5 (so g/day gain had doubled) - yet still went from 25th to 9th despite this seemingly better weight gain. Had been having some top-ups over the whole time.
HV has advised to give my EBM as top-up each day, obviously if it's such a small amount it's not going to make much difference but I'm keen to avoid formula for now if I can, though she has had some in the past.

Could it be the pump? my pumping volume went down and it was the white filter on my medala swing. replaced it and the pumping volume went up again. (had no idea a white bit of plastic could have so much impact!)

Good thinking, LIG.

Ooh I will try replacing it! How can it make a difference?!

Try hand expressing, it feels a bit more like a baby's latch so your body may respond better to it, Avent do storage cups so you can express straight into them or attach them to a pump.

Definitely try replacing the white plastic bit on the Medala. Same thing happened to me - was convinced my milk was reducing. I could feel the pump sucking apparently as normal, but was getting very little, very slowly. I changed the part and there was a dramatic improvement. Comparing the old and the new parts you could see that the white plastic flap was slightly warped, leaving a small gap, so suction was being lost. You wouldn't notice it at a glance.

Just to say a massive thank you! Yesterday I only managed to express 20ml. Today I used new white filters and got nearly 100ml! So thanks for the tip!

Glad it worked

Brilliant :)