How Often Should I Pump To Increase Milk Supply
The best way to increase breast milk supply fast is to increase the frequency of pumping and direct feeding. This method has the strongest science to back it up. You will also want to maintain a healthy lifestyle and make sure you are eating enough food and drinking enough water. You should pump every 2 hours for 15 minutes to increase your milk supply. This means there’s about an hour and 45 minutes between your sessions. If that doesn’t work consider power pumping, which is described below.
Power Pumping
Power pumping is a method of pumping breast milk that involves using a hospital-grade electric breast pump to get more milk out of your breasts. The idea behind power pumping is that you will be able to increase your milk supply by stimulating the glands in your breasts to produce more milk. To power pump, you’ll need to use a hospital-grade electric breast pump as a manual breast pump will not be able to do the job. Since once session of power pumping takes about an hour, you can do it 2 to 3 times a day. Be careful when power pumping that you don’t create too much of an oversupply. While an oversupply of breast milk may not seem like a bad thing, it can lead to painful breasts, clogged ducts, and mastitis.
Visualization
There is evidence to show that visualization of water flowing can help to increase breast milk supply as well as get milk to flow more easily. Femhealth has created a completely free meditation guide. To access, follow us on Instagram @femhealthproject and send us a message for the link.
Stay Hydrated
You should drink about 10-12 glasses of water a day to ensure that your body is getting enough fluids and nutrients. Drinking excess water will not increase your supply. However, being dehydrated could negatively impact your supply
Eat Well
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Breastfeeding requires an extra 300 calories a day, so be sure to consume enough calories and eat foods that are high in protein, iron, and fat. Eating foods high in fat will help you produce more breast milk because it contains the building blocks needed for producing breast milk. Some examples of foods that are high in fat include avocados, nuts, seeds, salmon, eggs and more.
Consider Supplements
You can think about taking supplements, but know that the evidence is very limited and most supplements won’t do anything to increase your milk supply. There are many different supplements out there that claim they can help increase your breast milk supply so make sure you talk with your doctor before trying any new supplements. Some supplements can also interfere with other medications so its important to talk to your doctor before doing this.
Sources:
Foong SC, Tan ML, Foong WC, Marasco LA, Ho JJ, Ong JH. Oral galactagogues (natural therapies or drugs) for increasing breast milk production in mothers of non-hospitalised term infants. Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2020 May 18;5(5):CD011505. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD011505.pub2. PMID: 32421208; PMCID: PMC7388198.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32421208/
Forinash AB, Yancey AM, Barnes KN, Myles TD. The use of galactogogues in the breastfeeding mother. Ann Pharmacother. 2012 Oct;46(10):1392-404. doi: 10.1345/aph.1R167. Epub 2012 Sep 25. PMID: 23012383.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23012383/
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