Increasing low breast milk production

KTZ17 · July 2013

Hello ladies. I had my DD at 31 weeks 3 days due to high blood pressure on May 17. She's been home 3 weeks and my milk supply is still insufficient. At first we were using a nipple shield but stopped using it last week. I breastfeed her then supplement with Enfacare or pumped breastmilk. I'm taking fenugreek, blessed thistle, and domperidone, but still my supply hasn't increased. My lactation consultant added goat's rue yesterday and is having my blood drawn to test hormone levels and my thyroid. Has anyone had success increasing a low supply? What did you do and how long did it take? I am so frustrated and depressed about not having enough milk for my daughter. I feel like my body isn't doing what it's supposed to do.

kelly422 · July 2013

What is your supply like now? Have you tried power pumping yet?

KTZ17 · July 2013

kelly422:
What is your supply like now? Have you tried power pumping yet?

When she was in the NICU and I was EP, I pumped 30ML combined at most per pumping session. Once she came home and I started BFing her before pumping, it went down to 15-25 ml. Then last week, possibly because I started taking the mini pill, it went down to 10-15 per session. I stopped taking the mini pill as per my lactation consultant.

I tried power pumping while she was still in the NICU but I think I'm past the point of that helping.

LnR70707 · July 2013

I had a pretty crappy supply....at 6 weeks I was only producing about 8 oz day...after trying the fenugreek and blessed thistle. My OB gave me a script for reglan and that doubled it. I was lucky enough to not be one of the people that has their supply tank again after stopping (reglan has a 2 week limit). I tried power pumping and pumping every 3 hrs for the next month but finally added in domperidone around 4 months and got up to 20oz a day. I stopped the dom after about a month (titrating down slowly to avoid supply tanking) and managed to stay at 20oz. A few weeks later I started dom again and upped my daily supply to 24oz. I gave up BFing entirely from about week 6 until week 11 when DS started sleeping longer stretches because it was just too much for me to nurse, pump, and then follow with formula.

kelly422 · July 2013

BostonKisses2:
If you can, it's still worth it to give power pumping a shot. nbsp;I have a good friend whose supply dipped a lot, and she power pumped to help boost it and it worked. nbsp;So it might be an option you could still explore and see if it does make a difference, you know? nbsp;Hopefully you can build your supply back up!

I agree its a way of mimicking a growth spurt, so it still might work. Also, baby should be better at emptying your breast than a pump, so it's hard to know exactly how much LO gets without doing weighted feeds.

KTZ17 · July 2013

kelly422:
BostonKisses2:
If you can, it's still worth it to give power pumping a shot. nbsp;I have a good friend whose supply dipped a lot, and she power pumped to help boost it and it worked. nbsp;So it might be an option you could still explore and see if it does make a difference, you know? nbsp;Hopefully you can build your supply back up!
I agree its a way of mimicking a growth spurt, so it still might work. Also, baby should be better at emptying your breast than a pump, so it's hard to know exactly how much LO gets without doing weighted feeds.

I've been doing weighted feeds at my appts with the lactation consultant and the most she has gotten from me is 1 oz and that's between both breasts. If I power pump, do I skip a whole feeding or two? Because there wouldn't be milk for her next feeding, right? I just feel like my supply is never going to increase at this point because I never made much to begin with.

JocelynB0911 · July 2013

Mothers milk tea worked wonders for me. I always recommend it.

Brummy14 · July 2013

I had a super crappy supply to start, as well -- and the only thing that helped was pumping like a crazy person. Supply and demand. I've tried everything else -- Fenugreek, Dom, Mother's Milk Tea, Oatmeal, etc -- and the only thing that had a measurable impact was pumping, pumping, pumping.

The entire 3 months my girls were in the NICU, I pumped every 2-2.5 hours during the day (for 20-25 minute sessions), with two power pumping sessions during the day. I went no longer than every 3 hours overnight. It was intense. I spent close to 7-8 hours a day attached to the machine. But, it worked. After pumping no more than 7oz a day after week two, over the course of three months, I was able to slowly get my daily output up to around 50oz. Still not enough to cover both girls today, but I was able to build a sizable freezer stash during that time, which has allowed me to hold off the need to supplement thus far.

eMiLee920 · July 2013

My understanding is that if you power pump, you should still let her feed regularly. If you want to increase your supply you need to empty the breast often so that more milk is made. At least let her latch and try for a few minutes for the stimulation before you supplement.

If that's wrong, hopefully someone else will chime in. While I did a lot of research, I was never able to establish a supply so I don't have a whole lot of personal experience.

Good luck!

KTZ17 · July 2013

Thank you all for your advice. I'll talk to my lactation consultant about power pumping at my appointment Wednesday. We had decided to stop pumping because I was breastfeeding her for like an hour, giving her a bottle, then pumping, so I was sleeping at night at most in one or two hour stretches and I was only getting like 10-15 ML per session.

I was hoping that someone would share that they were able to recover from a low supply in the beginning. I really want to stop supplementing with formula. My life would be so much easier if I could just breastfeed her and that's it. I just feel so disappointed that it might never happen.

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Increasing low breast milk production

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