[briemar]

hi
i am adopting a baby that will be born in april. i have my pump and have been pumping for 1 week now. i would like to talk to someone who would like to got thru this togeather, or have already gone thru it and is now nursing. iam doing this with out any herbs or drugs. i have a few feelings in my breasts and am wondering if they are normal or if some one else has gone thru it.
can't wait to hear from you.briemar

[aimeelynn818]

You might try the breastfeeding message board:
http://forums.adoption.com/forumdisp...s=&forumid=506

Aimee

[lisa in venice]

Most days when I post on this forum I am typing with one hand because I am nursing a very active toddler. This is the second adopted baby I have nursed and while it is hard work it is well worth it.

As for the feelin you are gettingyou may be feelin "letdown" You don't have to have been pg to nurse, just the stimulation of pumping or even better a nursling causes you to produce prolactin and oxytocin. Prolactin tells you body to produce milk and increase lactation tissue in the breast and oxytocin causes both let down and triggers the production of more prolactin. You don't need to use drugs to start producing these hormones it is just that drugs (domperidone) and herbs increase the production of prolactin faster. The higer your prolactin the faster you build breast tissues, more breast tissue more milk.

Nursing is about more than the milk. Now I say that as someone who nolonger has to suppliment (which makes my life easier) so you can take it with a grain of salt. Even a tiny amount of breast milk makes a difference, it only take a few oz/day to confer immunities and antibodies. Immunities are great but the real magic of nursing is the powerful relationship it builds. Email m if you want encouragement, support makes the biggest difference in success rates.

lisa












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[briemar]

hi lisa
did u pump before u recieved your babys?

[lisa in venice]

I pumped before my five year old Sam was born but Miranda was a surprise placement and I had no time to prep. With MIranda I just used the Lact-aid and took Dom and herbs until I got my supply up, then I gradually began weaning from the supplimenter. With Sam because I had pumped ahead of time I had a good suppLact-aid right away. That was helpful because I got to focus on positioning and latch for the first few days before I had to mes with the tubes. That just made the learning curve a little less steep.

lisa

[briemar]

hi lisa
how long did you pump before sam was given to you? did you have enough milk by the time he came home? and what kind of pump did u use?

[lisa in venice]

I only pumped for 9 weeks before Sam was born and could pump about 8 oz/day. That meant that I was probably producing about 10/12 oz per day or about half of what he needed. When you pump you assume that you are only getting 50% to 75% of the milk you are producing becaseu the pump is not as effective an expressor as a baby is. If I had had more time I could have achived a high % of his daily needs. We had a real rough patch after the first month when we started a major outbreak of thrush. It took nearly two months and several trips to both the Ped and the LC to get rid of that and to fix his latch which was really hurt by the thrush. Once that was done I started building supply again.

The first milestone was eliminating the supplimenter at night, then in the mornings. It was several months brofre I could totally eliminate the Lact-aid all together. One of the issues I had with Sam as that he was exclusivley breastfed (with some suppliment) and did not eat any solids (we tried he just wasn't havin' it). That meant that I needed a higher than average milk supply for him in the second half of the first year. By 8 months he was probably downing about 40+ oz/day.

It took me 9 weeks of pumping and 8 months of nursing to go from 0 to 40+ oz/day. That estimate is based on his weight and the rate at which he was gaining. Figure if your baby is gaining .5 pounds per week he is probably getting 2.2X his weight in pounds in oz of breastmilk. I built supply the fastest was after I saw the LC and she had me nursing AND pumping 10x/day. I went up about 16oz perday in less than a month. I probably could have gone on o build a full supply sooner if I had continued pumping but it was too hard. I had two older kids who needed to be driven all over creation.

I used a hospital grade rental pump. It was a Medela Lactina I think. I heard of one women who pumped for 9 months and was able to build a full supply without domperidone. It can be done but alot of it has to do with luck and how well ou respond to a pump. Many women never letdown for a pump very well but still have excellent milk supplies once the baby is nursing well.

lisa

[briemar]

hi lisa.
i am going to be a first time mom. i have never been pregnant before. i have 6 months before the baby is born. i have a medela pump. the first time out i got a little milk but it was very dark for which the nurse told me may pass and if not i would be given an antbiotic. but now one breast is clear but i get very little to nothing from it. but it has only been 1 week today every 2 - 4 hours,and the other one is still dark, but i get a little more from it but not much.. but i have been feeling a few discomforts the last few days. maybe it is a let down i dont know, and just wanted to know if anyone else has felt like this. it is like a sharp pain or a feeling of fullness it comes and go's very fast and it dosen't really hurt. now my breast look a like different. they are a little red where the milk ducts are,but on the outside. i have never seen a pregnent breast before so i wondered if maybe this is normal? my only hope is that i can produce all the milk the baby will need.thanks so much for your help and suport lisa.
brenda