Yvonne wrote:
>Is now pumping 40-48 oz/day.  <snip>  The LCs at the hospital have
suggested that
>she start phasing out the 1 am

My first response would be not to phase out a complete feed because she
will want the breast 'primed' to be producing milk at that time of day
(night) when the baby is fully breastfeeding.  And mother's concern about a
diminished supply is very real - when baby first starts to feed he won't be
draining the breast as efficiently as the pump did so I would expect it to
drop a bit, but with the oversupply still be plenty to meet baby's needs.


>Baby started doing
>recreational feedings 2 days ago, but will not be allowed to leave until the
>baby has bottle fed (3-4 weeks to go).

Research doesn't support this premise, but I guess you're not the one who
has set this parameter :-(   I think I might tend to be a bit sneaky at
this point and see if those 'recreational feeds' could become 'nutritional
feeds' so that in 3 - 4 weeks time when they say 'try a bottle' the mother
can say 'what the heck for, baby feeds beautifully at the breast - just look!'

>Baby has been sucking on a nipple and
>is been fed by gavage every 3 hours.

We have an international language problem here... by 'nipple' do you mean a
pacifier/dummy or the teat of a bottle or the mother's actual
nipple/breast?

>
>At the moment I am reading what I can on premies so that I can help this mom
>when baby comes home, so any advice that you can give me would  be greatly
>appreciated.

Oversupply, caused by overpumping, is an infinitely better problem to have
than undersupply, so at this stage i really don't think I would be too
concerned.  Sometimes ,if baby isn't gaining weight well, the hospital may
like to use the breastmilk mother expresses at the end of a session which
will be higher in fat content and perhaps discard (oops - sacriledge,
sorry!) or at least label as 'lower-fat mostly foremilk' and freeze the
milk she obtains at the beginning of the session.  This is described in
Breastfeeding Special Care Babies by Sandra Lang.

All the best Yvonne

Denise
Brisbane, Australia
****************************************************
Denise Fisher, BN, RM, IBCLC
BreastEd Online Lactation Studies Course
http://www.breasted.com.au
mailto:[log in to unmask]
****************************************************

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