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Subject:
From:
Margaret Radcliffe <[log in to unmask]>
Reply To:
Lactation Information and Discussion <[log in to unmask]>
Date:
Sun, 14 Jan 1996 15:30:50 -0500
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For those of you looking for what to say to the people who are planning to
pump human milk and feed it in bottles, feel free to use my personal
experience as an anecdote.

For reasons I won't go into (but would be familiar to all of you if I gave
you the details), I was forced to pump and feed (finger feeding with an SNS)
for 27 days after my first daughter was born.  On day 28, when she finally
latched on for the first time, I calculated how much more time I now had
than the day before.  It came to about 6 free hours a day.

Pumping 20 minutes x 7 times a day = 140 minutes
Feeding 60 minutes x 7 times a day = 420 minutes
Washing and refilling SNS 10 minutes x 7 times a day = 70 minutes
Logging milk fed and milk pumped (to track supply) 2 minutes x 7 times = 14
minutes

This totals to 10.75 hours a day.

Breastfeeding took 40 minutes x 7 times a day = 280 minutes, or 4.67 hours a
day.

This is a difference of 6.08 hours.

Six extra hours a day is enough to completely change the quality of life for
a new mother.  It is the equivalent of being able to eat meals, take
showers, take a walk, take a nap, and maybe even read a book (although
actually I used to read while I pumped).

Feeding with a bottle could probably take less time than finger feeding, but
I suppose it depends on the baby.  Also, I now realize that I didn't include
the time to warm the milk before feeding it, which would probably be about
another 35 minutes a day.


Another anecdote that you are free to use.  At my 6 week check up with this
same child, my M.D. gave me what must have been his standard line, that it
would now be OK to introduce one relief bottle a day if I wanted to, and
that my husband could feed it when he came home from work to give me a
break.  This made no sense at all.  For one thing, my child had only been
breastfeeding successfully for 2 weeks, and I had no intention of offering a
bottle and messing things up.  Secondly, my husband works a home most of the
time so he didn't "come home from work."  Third, if he fed a bottle at 5:00
pm, then I would have to cook dinner instead of nursing the baby sitting or
lying down while he cooked dinner.  This was no break.  So, you should feel
free to ask the question, "What will you be doing while your husband feeds
the bottle?"  If the answer is, cooking, shopping, laundry, cleaning the
house, etc., then it's not making it any easier for the mom.



Margaret K.K. Radcliffe               [log in to unmask]
Dept. of Mining & Minerals Engr.
Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, VA

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