Friday, September 6, 2013

Stress and your milk supply the never ending battle...

SO many times I have walked into a NICU room to talk to a mom about her LOW milk supply. I look behind her to see a small fragile baby fighting for their life. I look at the mother who is calm and concerned but does not put the two together. Sick baby= low milk supply. Why is this? Stress of course. Cortisol levels raising and constricting the milk from flowing well. I will go through the past few weeks with her: How often do you pump? What type of pump? When did you see you supply drop? Usually the answers are every 3-4hrs, during the day only...Double electric hospital grade..it just seemed to keep going down and down. I then start to talk to her about how to relax and how to bring the milk supply up. I then look her in the eye and say " this is hard, having a baby in the NICU, away from you." This is usually when the real emotions that are keeping her milk supply at bay show up. She may become teary eyed or just cry all together. Either way I think it helps to release those emotions. IF they work on their pumping and relaxation they can bring it back up.
 So how do I counteract my stress? HMMMM... do I follow what I say? Do I release my emotions? go for a run? watch a funny movie? eat comfort foods? get a massage? Of course not. Where is my Lactation Consultant that is going to help me get through a rough patch. This is very odd thing for me. I am the one who has all the answers to these questions and yet here I sit very stressed out, knowing that it is effecting my milk supply and I do nothing.
I can only say that I do have peace of mind that I know how to bring up my milk supply if it does fall too drastically, so I guess I am just waiting for it too happen. I SHOULD do extra pumping after feeds and make sure I am hydrated. SHOULD being the most important word in that sentence.
So I WILL do a few extra pumps a day and take walk and relax. After all I am only 3.5 months into a 2 year breastfeeding journey. My daughter WILL exclusively breastfeed, so I have no other options. SO I better stop typing and get pumping!!!

No comments:

Post a Comment