Nikki says:

<The range of production by mothers varies: from around 400 ml/24 hours to
over a liter in 24 hours. All those babies thrive, on different amounts of
milk.>

 

I had a mom last week who was an insulin dependant diabetic whose baby had
some cardiac issues due to the diabetes.  Neos wanted high volume feeds to
hopefully reversed the cardiac issue (not my area of expertise at all!) so
baby was to get at least 2 oz every 3 hours.  Baby was in Special Care and
not to breast so mom started pumping.  At Day 2 baby started going to the
breast and nursing poor to fair and still supplemented with 2 oz and mom
kept pumping after feeds. 

2 days after discharge she called the WIC BF Counselor and said she was
engorged 30 minutes after nursing so she was manually pumping 280 ml after
nursing the baby well and then putting him back to breast ½ hour later. So
she was nursing every 2-2 ½ hours and in addition pumping every 2-2 ½ hours.
She was pumping about 3 liters a day PLUS what the baby was getting at the
breast, sufficient to have a wet and stool after every feed!  We told her to
use cabbage leaves, pump only to comfort, eat Altoids, and maybe take
Benadryl or Sudafed.  I followed up with her 2 days later and her supply had
comfortably decreased just with the Altoids and pumping only for comfort.  

So I assume from this one case that moms can produce enough for quadruplets
if the need arose.  Or is this just a highly unusual case?  I’ve had a few
moms at work come up to pump and get 13 oz at a session.  I enjoy it when we
have 2 nursing moms on the shift pumping and hear them when they’re done ask
“How much did you get? I got this much.”  I suppose most moms never know how
much they produce because it all goes into the baby.   

Linda Anderegg, RNC, IBCLC in Chicago

 


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