Is It Good To Pump Breast Milk?

Is It Good To Pump Breast Milk?

Breastfeeding has so far been vouched for as the best start you can give to your baby in their first years of life.

Experts recommend that a baby needs to be breastfed exclusively for the first six months of their lives and thereafter up to two years while complementing it with other foods.

Breastmilk is said to have antibodies that help your baby to fight different bacteria and viruses.

It has also been found out that exclusively breastfed babies generally have fewer allergies, common infections, respiratory infections, and bouts of diarrhea.

Babies who are exclusively breastfed are also said to recover quickly in case of illness because their immunity is strong enough to quickly fight off the infections.

Breastmilk is also a cheap means of feeding your baby because it does not need to be bought.

It doesn’t need any preparation, making it readily available when the baby needs to feed.

Because it does not need preparation, its hygiene is assured thereby reducing the chances of stomach problems for your baby caused by a lapse in the preparation processes.

Reasons for pumping breastmilk

As important as breastfeeding may be for the baby’s health, sometimes it is difficult or impossible for the mother to successfully breastfeed her baby as is desired.

Some of these reasons can be that you have a premature baby in the hospital who cannot breastfeed and has to be assisted in feeding or your baby may be having problems in latching on your breast.

Your maternity leave may have ended and you need to go back to school or work.

There are times that your breasts can get too full and this makes breastfeeding a very painful process.

Sometimes having twins or triplets cause a challenge during feeding time especially when all the babies have woken up at the same time.

Some mothers also just don’t want to breastfeed.

With all the reasons given above, you can consider the option of pumping your breastmilk so that your baby does not miss out on the benefits and the goodness of breastmilk.

Since Breastmilk is the natural food for babies, pumping the milk offers your baby benefits that are similar, even though not equal, to feeding your baby breastmilk directly from the breast.

When you pump the breastmilk, your baby can be given the milk thus getting the same benefits as other children who are breastfed.

When you pump your breastmilk, you can have enough milk for your baby to be fed through other means like tube feeding for your premature baby, bottle feeding for those who do not have any other health problems.

How to successfully pump breastmilk

Pumping breastmilk is not necessarily a walk in the park for most mothers.

It is not an easy feat since it can be just as demanding and exclusive breastfeeding.

It can be exhausting, time-consuming, and challenging to continuously pump the breastmilk.

Again, like breastfeeding, if you do not know how to do it, it can also be a frustrating venture.

How long should you pump breast milk?

The frequency of pumping breastmilk depends on your baby’s age.

Like breastfeeding, the milk supply increases with the frequency of feeding.

A newborn baby typically feeds every two or three hours within the day.

This, therefore, means that you need to pump milk often to be able to adequately supply your baby with milk that they need round the clock.

To be able to establish a good supply of milk for your baby, you will, therefore, need to have a routine of pumping every two to three hours which is about eight times within the day.

As the baby continues to grow, they will be taking more milk during each feed but they will stay longer between each of the feeds.

Once you have been able to work on the milk supply in the earlier stages, you will have some time to rest as your baby grows older.

However, you do not have to stick strictly to the two or three-hour schedules.

Sometimes your breasts get too full making it very uncomfortable.

Therefore, you can pump the breastmilk as often as your breasts are full.

This can also mean an increased milk supply for your baby!

The length of a pumping session determines the quality of milk the baby gets.

As with the breastfeeding session, the baby gets the breastfeeding goodness from the hindmilk which comes at the end of the breastfeeding session.

Therefore, a breastmilk pumping session should not take less than fifteen minutes for each breast.

This ensures that the baby benefits from all the milk in the breast so that they can be able to grow well.

The general rule of thumb is to ensure you drain all the milk from one breast before moving on to pumping the other breast.

Draining all the milk in the breast also helps in stimulating the production of breastmilk which will come in handy for the next feed.

How to store breastmilk

It is exciting to know that the baby can still get the goodness of breastmilk when you pump for them the milk.

This then brings in the safety of the milk for the baby’s consumption.

This means that the storage of milk is very important to ensure the safety of this milk so that it does not cause illnesses for the baby.

Breastmilk can be stored in different forms and can keep for some time so that it is beneficial for your baby.

You can keep the breastmilk at room temperature to a period of four hours, and if storing in the refrigerator, it can last for four days.

It can last in the freezer for a whole good six months.

While storing the milk, pack it in quantities that can be all finished in a feed.

To prepare for a feed, warm the bottle of milk in a hot water bath until it gets to the body temperature.

A hot water bath ensures that the milk warms evenly.

Do not heat the baby’s milk in the microwave since it will form heat spots that can injure the baby by burning the throat whole feeding.