Hi mummies... i have not logged on for many months! my girl was born on 18 March, and I too like many of you struggled with MS. esp when it came from the nurses at the ward! The thing is, the more stressed you are about supply the less supply you will have. It's chickn and egg problem. There is just one bottom line to all this about MS - if there is demand there will be supply. So you have to do things to tell your body that the demand is there. Eg if you have a sleepy baby who sucks once in every 5 hrs, then in btween the feeds you have to pump to trick yr body into beliving there is 'demand'..
Some tips/encouragement
1. Try to buy Fenugreek in raw seed form - any indian provision shop will sell. Lightly fry and blend into powder form. Then take it either with honey or put into capsule and swallow them.
I did this even tho' it's so hard to swallow and my MS was restored within a day. I was asked to take like 3x a day by my mother in law but I took only 2x or sometimes once a day and still the MS is there. It's too bitter so I just take more in a single dose.
2. It doesn't mean that pumping is the only way to maintain MS. Latching does the same too - the trick is to empty the breasts as often as you can to let the body get msg that you need more MS. So the more often you empty (either by pumping or latching) the more MS you will have. For latching, make sure baby's suckle is strong enough - if you have latching problems then you have to resort to pumping initially to maintain MS.
For me, I dont pump as it's less effective than having the baby latch directly. Also at night, I am too sleepy to wake up and pump so I just latch my girl until breasts feel empty.
3. don't worry if your baby's drinking is not according to clockwork. Eg my girl drinks 3hourly from 6am to 3pm but then suddenly she will want to drink every hour and of coz my body will not be able to support. So that's when EBM comes in - dont worry if initially you have to support with FM so long as you pump after giving FM so that MS is maintained.
4. no engorgement still have milk. To be honest, if your baby feeds very often (hourly or 2 hourly..) your breasts may not have the chance to feel engorged. But if you squeeze the nipple, and milk comes out, that means you have MS.
Today my girl is almost 2 weeks and I am TBF. However, just 2 days ago, I was still relying on 1 FM feed of about 70ML.
please note that the more FM you give without stimulating the breasts to create more BM, the less MS you will have.
For those days when I had to rely on FM, I pumped. Even tho' output was 10 or 30ml, I still pump. Sometimes pump until sore still nothing comes out I still pump.
TOday after my girl latched on and fell asleep, I still have extra milk in my breasts - instead of pumping and storing, I just give the breasts to her say within 30min and she'll drink more.
I hope all of you will persevere..
go to
www.breastfeeding-basics.com/ for more encouragement.
