Echoing everyone else to say yes it is possible to initiate and maintain
milk supply with hand expression, even for more than one baby.  One of my
group members is grandmother to twins born at 30 weeks.  They tasted nothing
but their mother's breastmilk the first six months and she would not let a
pump near her breasts for the first several weeks because the sight of the
machine put her off.  Both ended up at breast., feeding without technical
aids, but in the beginning they needed gavage feeding so she expressed.
Eventually she used a manual pump when she needed to express milk later on
but for the first two weeks she only expressed by hand.  Babies were only
dependent on bank milk for a couple of days after birth.
I'm proud to say that our staff are good at teaching hand expression and it
is a core skill we try show every woman in the first full day she has on
postpartum.

Rachel Myr, glad I am a listmother and as such, not subject to the LN limit
of 3 posts a day

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