I work at the Milk Bank in Austin, Texas and I got a call the other day from
a woman who has had gastric bypass surgery.  She  wanted to get her milk
tested (a service which we do not perform).  She suspects that her milk is
low calorie and says it looks watery.  She pumps about 1 oz. at a time from
each side and uses a SNS with either expressed milk and/or formula (as per
the recommendation of an LC she worked with initially).  She says her baby
will go for 4 hours between feedings after receiving formula but wants to
eat again "in five minutes" if he gets exclusive breast milk.  She feels
like she cannot take in enough liquids because her stomach is so small; she
has no space to drink anything at mealtimes but tries to sip water all day
in between meals.  The first 2 weeks of her baby's life she breastfed
exclusively and the baby lost a lot of weight (he was a healthy 8 pound baby
at birth).  So, the issue for her now is that she is going back to work and
wonders if it is worth it for her to keep breastfeeding.  She wonders if her
milk has anything of value in it.  What would you say to her?  I am in
communication with her by e-mail and she has given me permission to post.
It seems she could benefit from some encouragement or inspiration to keep
going.  --Sarah Bradley

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