My friend continues to pump for her baby who has anoxic encephalopathy and is unable to feed. He is G-tube fed. I hope some of you with experience with ill babies and exclusive pumping may be able to help me with a couple questions. He is a few days shy of 7 mos now. First, when a woman is exclusively pumping, how does supply usually fare? She pumps with a rented Lactina most of the time, occasionally uses an Avent Isis when out and about. She now pumps 6 times a day, with about a 6 hour gap overnight. She has followed this pattern for about the last 3 mos, but in the last month she's had a harder and harder time with supply. She has been taking Domperidone for 4 mos or so, and has increased to 80 mg a day total, and is just barely making his needs, and occasionally not quite keeping up. Is it common to see a decrease in supply despite keeping the same pumping schedule? I've encouraged her to pump more frequently, at least short term. However, this is hard for her as she also has a very active 3 year old, plus therapy appts for the little guy. Also, his feeds take quite a while as he can only tolerate his bolus feeds very slowly or he spits up a lot and seems miserable. He does come to breast for recreation, but is unable to even latch, although he seems to like to be near his mother. Is she unlikely to maintain the same supply without increasing pumping in the second half of the first year? Incidentally, she had trouble with supply with her first child, but always felt that was due to poor latch issues in the first 1-2 weeks. The first child was born at home, and my friend had no experienced breastfeeding help. The baby lost nearly 2 lbs after birth (started just over 8 lbs) before she realized she was having a problem. She then went to stay with her mother for a couple weeks and her mom nursed her daughter part time (she was nursing an older baby herself at the time) My friend pumped and worked on building a supply, and then worked at getting the baby to latch better. She never produced a full supply for this baby, although she came close. The baby developed a bottle preference and had a nursing strike at 8 mos and was not persuaded to breastfeed again. This time, though, she initally was pumping 32 oz a day or more, so I think at least initially her supply was good. Second, in the last 1-2 mos, his weight gain has really slowed. He has been physically healthy, but he has gained only a few ounces in the last 2 mos He is occasionally supplemented with formula when she is unable to keep up. Despite a lot of effort, she has been unable to increase his daily volume much, as he just spits up more if more volume is offered. She doesn't have extra milk to do any lactoengineering. Any ideas on good ways to supplement him some extra calories? Jennifer Tieman Family Physician Mom to 4, including my toddler nursling Caroline Rose *********************************************** To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest) To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet All commands go to [log in to unmask] The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R) mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to: http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html