Breast Pump/ Expressing milk

[catalunya]

Avent manual pump is good. =) It works better than the Medela Electric Mini for me.

Most of the time I would hand express the milk, even when i go to work. I would stop expressing the milk until reaching certain amount of milk, instead of reaching a particular time. You can try pumping the milk until you have the second let-down and That would indeed help increase the amount of milk. It's a supply-and-demand "theory".

 

[peainpod]

I've been pumping for close on three months now (since returning to work.) A good pump makes a big difference so I would recommend renting a hospital-grade pump (Celki at 10/F Melbourne Plaza in Central) if you don't want to pay a lot of money buying an expensive double pump like Medela's Pump in Style. But double-pumping is a must for regular at-work moms. It not only cuts your pumping times in half, you also get more milk when you pump both breasts at the same time.

A word of caution on how you intend to use your freezer supply. I saved a stash before returning to work - and because i have a big baby who consumes a LOT (19 oz during the 10 hours I am away from home), I ended up using a bag of frozen milk to supplement the EBM I was pumping on a daily basis.

Occasional supplements with frozen milk is fine but if you are using frozen milk on a regular basis to make up the difference in what you can't pump, then what you're doing, is telling your body you only need x amt (in my case, 15 oz of EBM pumped daily) when you actually need x + frozen milk (in my case 19 oz - my baby consumes 3 5-oz fresh pumped EBM bottles plus 1 4-oz frozen milk bag). The problem is, once your frozen milk supply is gone, you will have a hard time trying to make up the extra milk again through pumping.

 

[yuukalim0404]

A new problem has since emerged...I am starting to pump more milk 3oz from one side in 15-20mins. I notice when I pump the milk comes out in small squirts and some in large explosive "fountains". I suspect this is too much for my baby to handle as she chokes and coughs at times and I see milk leaking from sides of her mouth.
So far, she is coping with this but yesterday it got so bad that she cried when drinking ( for the first time!) I am quite upset as she is hungry and I can't feed her direct. ( I had to give her expressed milk from bottle in the end)
I wonder if anyone has same problem, and what did you do?
She is 4 weeks old now, thanks!

 

[yan88]

Try the Medela pump. it's great! i used it since the first day my son was born and it's so quick and ease to use, i used to pump 6oz from each breast in 10 mins max. i breast fed for 6 months and stopped when he starts teeth....

It's a little pricy, it's about hkd5-6,000) but it's definately worthy the price or you can rent it from Annerley's at 6 to 700 a month.