Expressing for a preemie - any advice

Macmad

Happy mum of 2!
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Hi ladies

My little girl was born 6 weeks early and weighed 1.75kg. She has been in NICU and gaining weight slowly. She has been on special preemie formula but as my milk has now come in I have started to express. Its very early days and I have no idea what to expect. The first time I did it I got a total of 60ml from both breast. When I expressed next time, I only managed to get 30ml from both breasts. Am I doing something wrong or is this to be expected?

Any advice would be very welcome ladies. Thanks :hugs:
 
It takes time to build up your milk supply and even then you get varied amounts. I always found I had more in the morning.

If you are not already try double pumping as you get more. I double pumped for nearly 14 weeks. If needed do a couple of days pumping 10-12 times. Looking at a photo of your lo or smelling a blanket can help and always pump after having a cuddle of your lo.

Do not base your supply on what you are pumping as a baby is much more effective. At the most I only got 500-600ml a day and I still went on to breastfeed and still am 14 months later.

Congratulations on your little girl

Xx
 
Hi hun,

I had my baby at 33 weeks and was in NICU - I started hand expressing colostrum the evening I had him and the MW's took the teeny amounts to nicu for me and then on day 2 post delivery I was transferred to the ward and they gave me one of those industrial pumps. I found that I had varying amounts when pumping - my supply was best at about 3am for some reason and I got loads but on average I would get between 20ml and 60ml per pumping session (I was pumping every 2-3 hours) - so from my experience it is completely normal to pump varying amounts.

Hope your little girl continues to gain weight and is home with you very soon x x x x
 
The nurses on NICU should guide you. They told me to pump for 20 mins each side every 3 hours - religiously - and not to worry about how much I got - just to carry on. I managed to get LO on the breast at about 3 weeks old (he wasn't prem though) and he's still feeding 19 and a half months later :)

Good luck!
 
This video may help you with expressing. I've posted it in the exclusive expressing thread, but it's quite a few pages back.

https://newborns.stanford.edu/Breastfeeding/MaxProduction.html
 

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