one breast is hardly producing milk

[71newmom]

I have a good supply of milk on one breast, but the other doesn't produce much at all, and is significantly smaller. When I pump, I have the usual letdown, and the milk comes at a good rate, but only for a minute or 2. I get maybe .5 oz, even after 4-6 hours. I know it isn't a measure of how much I actually have, but I can pump much more on the other breast and feel really full on that side after a few hours. I never really feel "full" on the poor side. I alternate sides equally, making sure my son is spending just as much time on the poor side. I know he doesn't get much milk there, because he's very restless on that side until I switch him over. Sometimes if he's sleepy, I just let him suck for a while to stimulate more milk production, but it doesn't seem to help. My supply was great on both sides up until my son was about 6 months old, although it may have been slightly less on the one side (but not much). He's now almost 10 months. I am EBF. I know that technically I can breastfeed with only one side, but I don't get why things have changed after 6 months. Does anyone else have this problem? Any ideas on how to overcome it?

[MomInFlux]

: You've described me to a "T" My supply on one side dropped around 6-7 months, and DD is now 9 months old. I don't know why or how to fix it.

[blueridgewoman]

Just a quick chime in to say that I have the same thing. In my case, mastitis pretty much eliminated my supply in one breast so after struggling with it for a long time, I weaned from that side.

You could try just focusing on nursing on it or, failing that, pumping the heck out of it, but it sounds like you already have. I guess just trust that your other breast will pick up the slack, which of course it will.

I'm sorry I don't have an answer!

[tanyalynn]

I don't know why that would happen--with my 2nd child, my supply was imbalanced from very early on. I sorta equalized it (not completely, but some) by always starting nursing on the side that produced less. Doing this for several days made a quick impact, but it never got back to truly equal. After I did that, I still tried to start on the smaller supply side about 2/3 of the time.

[MaryJaneLouise]

As others have commented, imbalances are pretty common. If you want to work on changing that, here's some hints:

http://www.kellymom.com/bf/concerns/mom/lopsided.html

[Rogelito's Mommy]

This happened to me too. On the suggestion of my friend I started nursing baby on the side that was producing less first, switched him to the other, then tried to get him back on the poor producing side for a few more minutes. In about a week it seemed to even out for me.

Good luck!

[veganone]

I have one side that tends to produce less than the other and it got more noticable at 6 mos, too. I find that if I nurse on that side first at EVERY feeding it seems to pick back up enough to keep my looking even. It still is a lower producer overall, but is within an ounce of the other when I pump.

[onyxravnos]

My smaller breast also produces way less. I tried all the tricks to make it produce more but it's still not. I just gave up bothering with it but I have noticed that ds prefers the less producing breast for comfort nursing and the other one more for feeding so it ends up working out for us