Tips to Express Milk for Your Premature Baby

While your preemie is being taken care of by the doctors, it is true that you may feel like you aren’t able to do enough. However, you can always take care of your little one as no one else can – that is, by expressing your breast milk for him. This can give you a sense of peace and purpose that you’re able to care for your baby.

Advantages of Expressing Breast Milk for Preemies

Preemies are bound within the NICU, and you cannot directly breastfeed them. But, you can always express your breast milk and feed it to your little one. The advantages of doing this are:

• Your baby will be provided with nutritious breast milk which is crucial for his growth and immunity.
• You will maintain a steady flow of breast milk. Your mammary gland produces breast milk based on demand. So the more you feed, the more milk it produces. However, since a premature baby cannot directly feed on your breasts, expressing milk helps maintain the flow of breast milk.

What Methods Are Used to Express Breast Milk?

Breast milk is expressed in two ways – hand expressing and breast pumps. You can choose what works for you.

If you are hand expressing, you should begin by washing your hands and then gently massaging your breasts and stimulating your nipples. With your thumb and index finger on your areola, far from the nipple, begin gently squeezing for two seconds. Continue this until milk flow reduces to drops and express the other breast. Ensure not to hurt yourself or cause friction on the nipples during the process.

You can also use hospital grade breast pumps, which are hand pumped, battery or electrically operated. Double pump kits that are electric or battery operated are quite adept at stimulating the release of prolactin which is the milk-making hormone. They also save time by allowing you to pump both breasts at the same time. You can try the single breast pump if you are comfortable with it.

What Type of Breast Pump Should Be Used to Express Breast Milk for a Preemie?

For mothers of premature babies, doctors usually recommend a hospital-grade double pump kit electric or battery operated breast pump. As mentioned, these can help release the highest quantity of milk by stimulating the release of prolactin. This will help you maintain a good and lasting milk supply for your baby.

How Often Should You Express Breast Milk?

The goal is to express milk as often as a healthy newborn would feed, which is ideally eight to ten times in a period of 24 hours. This comes to one time every two or three hours. This frequency is also essential for your body to stimulate the release of prolactin and make more milk. Mothers of twin preemies can pump up to 10 times in 24 hours.

How Long Should an Expressing Session Last?

Each breast takes about 15 minutes to express when you initiate expressing. So you may take a total of 30 minutes to pump with a single breast pump. As your milk supply increases and is established, you will need to pump until every last drop of milk is emptied from your breast. This essentially means pumping for one or two minutes after your milk has stopped flowing. The last drops of breast milk have essential fats which are vital for the growth of your little one. Ideally, you should be done pumping in 30 minutes to get all the milk supply.

How Much Milk Should Be Expressed?

The volume of milk expressed varies from mother to mother and differs at every expression. The first few times, your milk has colostrums which can be between a few drops to a few millilitres. With time, after four or five days, your milk matures and you can express anywhere between 50 to 70 ml each time. After two weeks, you would be able to express about 600 to 800 ml in a day. This volume goes up to 1000 ml for mothers of twins.

Additional Points to Remember

Pumping for a preemie in NICU is essential for the overall growth of the baby. Keep these points in mind if you have to express milk for your premature baby.

• Express milk within the first six hours after the baby is born, especially if your baby cannot breastfeed.
• For the first few days, stick to hand pressing to establish milk supply.
• Nipple stimulation and gentle breast massage can help let-down reflex and start milk flow.
• Express at regular intervals in 24 hours to maintain milk flow. Expressing at one go is not equally effective.
• If you have sore or damaged nipples, you can hand express, which is gentler than the other means. Electric breast pumps, when used with care, also work well.
• Relaxing while you express milk and getting skin-to-skin contact (kangaroo care) with the baby before or during expressing can increase milk flow.

Expressed milk can be vital for the well-being of preemies. These tips can help you express milk the right way for your little one and be prepared for the time when he’s ready to breastfeed.

Also Read:

How to Help Preterm Baby Gain Weight
Sleeping Habits of a Premature Baby
Effective Tips of Taking Care of Preterm Baby at Home