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Pumping for a preemie - advice please

takmjstakmjs member
in Breastfeeding
Hi. A little backstory: My daughter was born at 30 weeks, after 6 weeks of bed rest for me (5+ in the hospital). She is now 2.5 years old. I had to pump exclusively, b/c she was too little to nurse, and I barely got any milk the entire time. I think 30-40 mL was my max, but a normal session by the end was 8-15 mL per breast. I tried so many different things, from doing skin-to-skin then pumping bedside, eating oats, using the hospital/NICU pumps, warm compress before pumping, massage breasts before pumping, power pumping, even a medication (metaclopramide/Reglan). I pumped every 3 hours with a Medela pump. Nothing seemed to help, and I was a wreck that I couldn't provide enough even for my tiny baby. Traveling 90 minutes to the NICU, then 90 minutes home didn't help. If it was just my husband and me, I would often pump during one/both trips in the car. I looked into renting a hospital-grade pump, but since I never had any better output using the pumps at the NICU, I figured that wasn't the issue. I met with a lactation consultant at least 4-5 times, got mastitis at one point....it was just not meant to be, it seemed. But I really want it to work this time, especially if I have another preemie. 

Fast forward to now. I'm 26+ weeks pregnant, and things are going better this pregnancy--no talk of bed rest yet, and we're hopeful I can make it farther than 30 weeks, but it's unlikely I would make it to term. If I still need to exclusively pump to start with, b/c baby's too small/not ready to nurse, does anyone have any suggestions for me? Anything I can do to boost my supply when pumping? Did anyone have better luck hand expressing or using a manual pump? I'm begging for advice! TIA.
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Re: Pumping for a preemie - advice please

  • KTZ17KTZ17 member
    edited August 2014
    My DD was born at 31 weeks 3 days and I just wanted to say I had the same issue with insufficient supply. I also tried fenugreek, blessed thistle, goat's rue, malunggay, shatavari, and domperidone. I tried power pumping, but with my NICU schedule it was tough. I ended up using a supplemental nursing system till DD was one so she could get all the breast milk she could and not have to bottle feed. Just wanted to say I hope you make it much further in this pregnancy so that you won't have the issue of needing to pump. My LC thought that my issue could have been partly that since my dd was so early, my breasts didn't grow at all. Also I wasn't able to begin pumping for over 24 hours because I was on a mag drip. And my blood pressure may have contributed. So there's just no way of knowing what the problem was. I wish you luck!!! Edited to add info.

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