Becky writes:

>To a few thousand of my best colleagues,
>
>I've combed the archives to see what I could be missing and found nothing.
>Help!!!
>
>Mom is 33yo, gave birth at 28 wks, been pumping ever since - q 3 hrs X 15
>min. during the day (6-7 times / 24 hrs.). Using double, hospital-grade,
>automatic rental pump. (The green one.)  Have checked fit of flange to
>mom's nipples, and it seems good.  Milk supply was fair first 2-3 weeks,
>then tapered off.

This is so sad and demoralising for the mother, but expressing (or feeding,
for that matter)  6-7 times in 24 hours would be unlikely to maintain a
good supply for longer than a few weeks...it's just not often enough. It is
hard to maintain motivation to express often enough, of course, but if she
starts feeding (if  the baby can come to the breast at all, even for
skin-to-skin/kangaroo rather than actual sucking) and she starts to
increase her expressing sessions, she should be able to increase her
supply.

The length of time on the pump is less important than the frequency of the
sessions.

Maybe she would be helped with some lay support to cheer-lead her through
this hard time, too.

Heather Welford Neil
NCT bfc Newcastle upon Tyne UK

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