Wow! I go away for an afternoon and look what happens! The most amazing thing happened when I started pumping for my baby. If you have followed my story, you know I didn't start pumping until Emily was 5 weeks old. She had lost a frightening amount of weigh since birth, and she was 5 weeks old when the doctor discovered her cleft palate.
When I started pumping I was only pumping about 10 ounces a day. My baby was starving, my mind knew it, and I think my body knew it as well. I started pumping every 2 hours and twice at night to try to build my supply back up. I took any known herbal galactagogue available to me.
I didn't notice it at first, because I was feeding her the milk almost as soon as it was pumped. It wasn't until I had some sitting in the fridge for more than 4 hours that I started seeing something really odd. My milk wasn't separating. There was no cream at the top. I really should say, there was no watery milk on the bottom. The entire bottle was thick and creamy. I'll bet it tasted delicious!
Anyway, dd2 certainly ate it with great zeal. It was the first time in her life her hunger had been satisfied. It wasn't until she was up into the 50th percentile for weight (around 2 months later; she was in the 5th percentile when I started pumping) that I started noticing that there was more of a balance between fore and hindmilk. I would have loved to know the nutritional content of my milk at that time.
I believe that my body knew my baby needed as much fat and nutrition as she could possibly get. When I started pumping, it responded. Breastmilk is the perfect food for the baby at whatever age of development they are at. It doesn't matter if the milk is being extracted from a suckling babe, or an impersonal pump.
I believe that my milk is produced by more than just the stimulation from the pump. I believe it also comes from my mind, heart and soul.
I have heard a couple of women here say they wouldn't be able to pump if their baby couldn't nurse. I say to those women that you might surprise youreself. I said that when a friend of mine pumped for her baby due to latch issues. Then I had issues of my own. You do what you have to do. I couldn't bear the thought of my baby on formula when I could give her MM.
To a pregnant woman contemplating EP'ing from the very beginning, I would (and have) urged her to at least try nursing first. I told the realities of pumping. She thought she would have more freedom (you have less), that her husband would be able to feed (true, but the costs far outweigh the benefits), and that it would be more discreet (her husband had a problem with the idea of nursing
but still wanted the benefits of the BM. Yes, this is for real). I told her that pumping was very much less discreet than nursing, so she would be isolated even more as she left friends, gatherings and public places so she could pump. I also told her that her husband needed to get over his own misplaced idea of what the female breast was for. It wasn't his decision. She eventually decided to try to nurse, and spoke with her husband about it.
How a woman chooses to feed her child is her decision, but I would hate for a woman to go into EP'ing with a lot of misconceptions about how easy it would be, only to find that it is too hard, then not be able to get her child to latch on, and have to switch to formula.
Bec
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