increasing fat in milk?

[myk]

DD2 just turned 2 months old and we've had issues from the beginning. long story short, we've been pumping since birth. this week, for the first time, she finally latched using a nipple shield. i have major oversupply! i always knew that but as long as we were exclusively pumping, all the bottles would get both foremilk and hindmilk, as i would pump dry each time. i dropped the night pumping a while back and would get 16oz after the 8 hour pause in pumping, to give you an idea how much milk i was producing. i have 200-300oz in my freezer :)

so now that she's latching, i think she's getting mostly foremilk. the evidence is in the diaper, as well as the gassy crying. i've reduced pumping to three times a day (mostly to prevent mastitis, which i've had twice already, but also because with pumping i can get all the hindmilk out and if i give her a couple bottles of EBM the symptoms aren't as bad). i latch her whenever she wants but i'm block feeding. this *should* help reduce the overall supply.

i'm noticing though when i pump, the layer of cream on top is very thin compared to what i could pump with DD1. we went to the pediatrician today for her checkup and she is only 10lb 7oz, with a birth weight of 8lb4oz. that seems like not a lot of weight gain to me (DD1 was about 15lb at this point). is there any way to increase the fat content of my milk, in addition to the ways i'm trying to manage the oversupply?

i really wish there was a milk bank i could donate to, but there isn't one here.

[ILoveMyBabyBird]

i think i've read that marshmallow root helps

[PatioGardener]

Congrats! So happy that she's latching!

Well, the great news is that the fat content of what baby gets when breastfeeding should increase when your over supply settles down. It may help if you list everything you are doing for oversupply.

How long are your blocks? I had to go to 10 (yes, ten) hour blocks. It was painful, and I leaked like crazy, but I worked slowly up to that long (increasing an hour a day) and together with the herb sage to decrease supply, and 'resetting' my supply a couple of times (I can link the article if you are interested), that finally evened things out.

As for weight gain, when was she back up to birth weight? Because 35 oz over 6 weeks (if she was up to birth weight at 2 weeks old) is over 5.5 oz/week, which is normal.

[MedicBaby21]

I have read marshmallow root as well and chlorophyll....

[myk]

Originally Posted by PatioGardener 

Congrats! So happy that she's latching!

Well, the great news is that the fat content of what baby gets when breastfeeding should increase when your over supply settles down. It may help if you list everything you are doing for oversupply.

How long are your blocks? I had to go to 10 (yes, ten) hour blocks. It was painful, and I leaked like crazy, but I worked slowly up to that long (increasing an hour a day) and together with the herb sage to decrease supply, and 'resetting' my supply a couple of times (I can link the article if you are interested), that finally evened things out.

As for weight gain, when was she back up to birth weight? Because 35 oz over 6 weeks (if she was up to birth weight at 2 weeks old) is over 5.5 oz/week, which is normal.

i'd like that link, thanks! i had been doing 8 hour blocks but right now she really doesn't like latching on the right very much. so.. it's hard to answer. i'll try to latch her on the right but if that doesn't work, i latch her on the left. so she's definitely getting more left than right. i've been trying to cut the oversupply a bit more aggressively - no drugs or herbs, but REALLY pulling back on the pumping. it seems to be helping some, i have less left over. at one point i was easily pumping 40oz/day, probably more because one day i bagged 16oz and put it in the freezer plus i had the little leftover bits in the bottles.

apparently her weight gain is just fine.. i had a public health worker come in and plot her on a growth chart :) but she's still got symptoms of fore/hindmilk imbalance and she's not satisfied after her feeds.. i'll latch her a couple times in a row and then she just gets too frustrated/hungry/whatever. i know she's getting milk, i hear her swallow. she's not sputtering, i don't have a forceful letdown.. everything seems pretty fine except the milk fat stuff at the moment.

[PatioGardener]

nak

http://www.internationalbreastfeedingjournal.com/content/2/1/11

great news re: weight gain! Is she 100% at the breast now? wow you two have been working hard! :)

[Heba]

Ah, was just going to suggest full drainage prior to block feeding, but I see that Patio Gardener has already posted the link - excellent :).

Hope your supply settles down!

xx

[Heba]

PS If you'd consider informal milk sharing (and I'm not saying that you should or shouldn't), Eats on Feets has now been renamed Human Milk for Human Babies, and you could, if you wanted to, check to see if there's anyone near you who needs milk. 

[myk]

thanks! i've already offered to HM4HB but no takers - i'm in an area where it's not in demand at the moment :)

so what i have been doing already is full drain before bed, when i am quite uncomfortable. she has decided today she's not interested in the right side so i pumped a couple times to relieve pressure - approx 2oz each time. she latched reasonably well on the left though last night she refused both sides and i gave her EBM. that pretty much happens every night. i do try for 8 hour blocks and i was pumping the "new" side before beginning the next block.. so if she'd been drinking on the left, once the 8 hours or so was up, i'd pump right and start afresh. is that too much pumping? is leaving it better, and just feeding after it was not used for 8 hours? i would think that would result in too much foremilk being present in the right breast for the first feed at least. or was i just encouraging more production that way? are you only supposed to completely drain once and then feed as if you don't have an oversupply?

i've got big "milk lakes" in any case, just pumped 8oz from the right breast, discarding the first 2oz because it's too low in fat. i was getting pretty uncomfortable there. she's not completely draining the left side either - i know you never truly "empty" but for curiosity's sake i pumped after she fed and there was more than an ounce. i used to joke that i didn't have big jugs.. i had tanker trucks (i'm a 38M right now) but i'm starting to think the joke isn't really that far off.