Tips for pumping to donate!

[lovepiggie]

Hello all!

I'm so excited. I've always wanted to be able to donate BM, however, there's only one hospital in Canada that accepts donor milk, and it's 12 hours away!

But! DH and I just decided to move, and now we will be much much closer to the hospital! I'm so excited that I'll finally be able to donate milk.

Does anyone have any tips? I think I will need to start increasing my milk supply, so that I will have extra and not be reducing the amount DS gets. Obviously this would've been better a few months ago, when I was over-abundant with milk, but oh well!

Should I be taking any herbs? Or just pumping to slowly increase my supply? I've stopped drinking coffee, is there anything else that I should stop doing to make my milk safer for little babies?

[patronus]

congrats on becoming a donor! milk saves babies' lives

the milk bank i donate to has a very extensive packet of info for donor moms, you should contact your milk bank and see what they say.

i would bump up your supply by pumping extra sessions. i didn't need to boost my supply, i already had extra milk because when dd transitioned from nanny to childcare she drank 4oz less per day (nanny was overfeeding her!) so instead of adjusting my supply down, i just freeze half for our freezer stash and half for the milk bank.
if you are considering herbs, ask the milk bank if they are compatible with donation. my bank says i can drink a cup of mother's milk tea a day but much more than that would preclude me from donating that milk.

my milk bank sends donors special containers to freeze milk in. they should be labeled with my name, donor number and date of expression.

be ready to give an extensive medical history and do blood work. the medications & herbs that are ok to use and still donate milk is *very* small. be sure to check with your milk bank. medications that are compatible with bf'ing a healthy infant are not necessarily ok for sensitive little preemies (who, most likely will be the recipients of donated milk).

congrats again on your generosity, tell us how things are going when you get set up with the milk bank!