BREAST PUMP OF THE MONTH – JULY – Philips Avent Comfort Single Electric

In line with its dedication to helping mothers breastfeed for longer, Philips AVENT has recently launched its Comfort single electric breast pump.

Designed to ensure moms feel at ease while expressing, the new Philips AVENT Comfort breast pump is the result of over 25 years of research, collaboration with leading scientists, as well as interviews with over 15 000 mothers worldwide.

In addition to Philips AVENT’s extensive research, independent studies have proven that infant suckling is a synergistic combination of breast compression and intra-oral vacuum, originating from the peristaltic action of the infant’s tongue. The Philips AVENT Comfort breast pump is based on exactly these insights.

The Philips AVENT Comfort single breast pump automatically starts in gentle stimulation mode to assist let-down. Thereafter, a mother can choose between three pumping settings to ensure her milk flow is comfortable and effective. Furthermore, it is easy to use on the go because it comes with batteries.

Designed for mom’s ultimate comfort, the Philips AVENT Comfort single breast pump has without a doubt been developed with a firm commitment to breastfeeding in mind.
Available at leading mother and baby stores including Baby City, TRU, and selected Dischem stores, it retails for R2 550.00.

For more information on expressing effectively, you can view a helpful video clip at http://www.philips.co.za/c/avent-baby-breastfeeding/21826/cat/.

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What Being A Low Producer Was Like For Me

When I started out pumping for my daughter over 3 years ago, I had no idea that exclusive pumping was an actual “thing”, I had no idea what was considered the norm in terms of pumping sessions and yeild. So I chose to follow my newborns normal feeding patterns which consisted of pumping at every feeding session, which made sense to me.

Looking back however I can now say convincingly that I was a low supply mom, the one thing that made this hard to tell at the time was the fact that my daughter was a poor feeder, such a poor feeder in fact that we frequently found ourselves in hospital due to poor feeding and often dehydration as a result of the poor feeding.

As poor a feeder as my little girl was (is), I was always only a bottle ahead of her needs, if that, so I had to pump every time she “fed”, which worked out to every 2 hours for approximately the first 6 months of her life.
Every 2 hours, day and night, I would pump my yeild which averaged around 125mls a session in the beginning and slowly grew to 200mls a session by the 6 month mark, MOST of that went down the drain to lack of knowledge and experience in correct breastmilk handling.

Pumping around the clock was tiring, but by 5 weeks I had a system that seemed to work for me, I would feed the bottle I had in the fridge from the session before, burp, change and settle my daughter and then while singing or bouncing on the bed next to my daughter I would start my session, luckily I had invested in an amazing little hand pump whose suction is comparable to leading hospital grade electrics, so pumping sessions were 20 to 25 minutes max, I would do a quick wash of my pump, stick it in the steriliser and hop into bed next to my newborn for a blissful few minutes of sleep and start again. There were days however where supply was lower than normal and I would pump what I could, feed her and pump again 30 minutes later. I could never supplement with formula as my daughter suffered from an allergy to cows milk protein and formula made her incredibly ill.

In retrospect I am glad I did not know of the many EP support groups out there available to me in the beginning, I feel that if I had actually known I was a low supply mom back then, I would have been discouraged and perhaps ended my journey a long time ago. Support is vital in a journey like exclusive pumping, but personally I am a very sensitive person by nature and can often overthink and over analize situations to my own detriment, that being said, if you feel you NEED support, then reach out and find it!

At around 6,5 months I was put on a medication called Eglynol, which is an anti-physcotic which was subscribed for 2 purposes, I had started suffering with PND and as a side effect of this drug, it increases breast milk supply. It helped tremendously to boost my supply (and quieted my mind) and I was able to have 2 or 3 feeds available in the fridge at any given time, but by then I also knew a lot more on how milk production works and so I knew that skipping sessions could harm my supply. So I stuck to my schedules and started to slowly drop from 11 pumps per day down to 9.

By the time my daughter was mobile I was still on a demanding schedule for pumping, being alone for most of the day I made use of plenty of colourful books, noisy toys and lots of pillows. Again, I am thankful for having found such an amazing little hand pump so although I was tied down to my pumping sessions, I wasn’t tied down to specific place, I could move around freely and interact with my daughter and still pump.

At around 23 months I officially started my first freezer stash, I was able to freeze about 100mls a day, which I happily donated to SABR as my daughter was not particularly fond of frozen stash milk. Ironically I was also at my lowest number of pumps per day, which was 2 to 3 sessions a day. My daughter had gone from drinking 125mls 4 times a day to drinking 2 bottles of 150mls each.

At 38 months I decided to wean from the Eglynol and as expected my supply took a hit, from producing up to 200mls a session (400mls a day), I went down to pumping on average 80mls a session, which just barely covered my daughters bedtime bottle, so begrudgingly I added in a power pump session 3 days a week. Thankfully my supply started averaging at 120 – 150mls a session which worked out to 250 – 300mls a day so I was again able to freeze some milk every day.

Having a low supply meant that I had to work a little harder than most and I absolutely HAD to stick to frequent pumping sessions for a lot longer in my journey than other EPers, supplementary feeding was not an option and so my only choice was to persevere and do what had to be done.

I do not feel that I missed out on any time with my baby or lacked bonding time, we are extremely close and I believe that the benefits of being able to feed my daughter breastmilk far outweighs any hardship I had to endure to get her to where she is today.

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The Worlds Secret Breastfeeding Community

It is “Keep Britain Breastfeeding” in the UK this week and one of the members of an Exclusive Pumping group wrote this beautiful post.
It is wonderful to know what a supportive, kind and together community the EP groups are, we have all experienced the same challenges, let downs and stigma attached to bottle feeding our breastfed babies.

My Exclusively Pumping Story

While most new moms are fawning over their precious little bundle while breastfeeding (or bottle feeding), I sat for the first few months of J's life expressing 2 hourly, washing and sterilizing pumps and bottles and syringes and then for 45 painful minutes every 2 to 3 hours I would hold my screaming, writhing, jerky baby and try syringe down as much breastmilk as I possibly could.

I would dread feed times, the screaming was unbearable, it was like I was pouring hot lava down her throat, she would choke, vomit, scream, go blue and by the end of 45 minutes I was sobbing and she had had a measly 10mls.

There were days and nights were I literally wanted to grab her face and scream "eat child! Eat! Or you will die!!!" I had very little support and almost no help. My husband slept in the main room as he had to be up at 4am for work so I slept on a little single bed with a newborn who did more screaming than sleeping, I had no idea what I was doing, I was alone, scared, frustrated and was running out of steam.

The expressing was difficult in the beginning, I think the reason it was so difficult was because I so desperately wanted to breastfeed normally, I tried at every feed to get her to latch and she latched once or twice but then end up screaming, I tried laying down and feeding, all the different latch positions but latching seemed to upset her terribly.

My pump schedule was hectic when we got home from the hospital, I had just enough milk and wanted to keep it that way so I was expressing every hour to 2 hours, in between I had to wash my pump, storage bottles, and her syringes, sterilize it all and start again. To make matters more complicated, I just did not respond well to electric pumps, so we invested in the Philips Avent manual pump, which I responded to REALLY well, so I have been exclusively pumping using a manual pump which seems to be quite rare in EPing community.

I eventually managed to get her to latch onto the NUK prem teats once or twice, but she would get so tired and end up having very little milk. We ended up walking and bouncing her while feeding to Kerri Hilsons "Pretty Girl Rock", it was the only way to get any milk into her! At that stage I was barely getting half the required amount into her.

At 5 months I managed to get her to drink from the NUK size 1 teat, it took about a month to get her consistently drinking from a bottle without us having to syringe feed her, we have been using that same sized teat ever since.

By the age of 6 months we had been in and out of hospital 18 times for poor feeding and dehydration, that was almost every 2nd week, the pead would hook up the IV and leave, no tests, no exams, nothing. She would pass it off as me being "high strung" and baby picking up on my emotions, sometimes I wanted to just punch her in the face, of bloody course I was high strung! My baby was barely drinking or sleeping and all she ever did was scream, I'd love to see any person on the planet hold their composure while dealing with everything I was on top of pumping every 2 hours around the clock.

We eventually changed pediatricians but I was still feeling despondent and irritated because he didn't know how to help either other than to advocate for formula or push for feeding tubes. I literally tried everything, including watering down my breastmilk, to adding chocolate nesquick to it just so she would drink.

One of the doctors thought perhaps it was my milk, so he tried to feed her formula, he couldn't even get the bottle into her mouth, the smell of the formula sent her into full out screaming mode, we ended up having to buy a sample of almost every single formula on the market, eventually the pead got a whole 15mls into her but it ended up making things worse as she vomited up thick, yellow bile, so we decided to stay away from formula and continue to provide J with the milk that was perfectly designed for her.

During the feeding struggles I felt very alone, no one could get J to drink, we had the first pead try a few times and she would just hand J off to the nurses and get them to try and eventually I would be handed back a full bottle and a screaming baby, the sister at Storks Nest actually took J for 6 hours one day while I slept on the couch in the clinic room, she couldn't get more than a few mls of milk into her either and suggested we consult with a different pead and try for a gtube, our new pead tried but got so flustered he didn't even check on us in person at evening rounds, I had our domestic worker try, my mom, my sister, my step father, my husband, friends, everybody had a turn and no one could get her to drink, it became such a difficult task that people would be so scared to fight with this tiny little girl that it ended up being ONLY me who could sit for hours trying to get her to drink. It was draining!

Fluids became such an issue with me because I was so terrified of her being admitted again and having to hold her down while they poked around to get an IV in that I started keeping a "fluid diary" on every single ml she took, I thought it would help, that maybe she was really taking more than we thought but in the end it just scared me more because at one stage she was meant to be getting up to 700mls of fluid a day and she was taking between 200 and 250mls.

Around a year I had settled nicely into a pumping routine, it had become a way of life instead of a task, although I still longed with every fiber of my being that she would latch, she was just not interested.

At 14 months she was admitted for a stomach bug and that is when we discovered she had a Class 4 lip tie and silent reflux and a new diagnosis of sensory processing disorder, all things the delivering pead, lactation consultant and storks nest sister SHOULD have picked up at the many, many times I frequented their offices desperate for help.

We eventually got her mouth properly assessed and found she had a class 4 restrictive upper lip tie, a submucousal posterior tongue tie and 3 buccal ties, she also has a high arched palate with poor suck reflex. All of these things should have been picked up!

For me breastfeeding via exclusively pumping became one single act I felt I had control over, it was exhausting, stressful and demanding, but it was in my control, and when you feel like you have lost control of everything else in your new role as a mother, it becomes something that you will fight for tooth and nail.

At 22 months I dropped down to 2 pumps per day, in a way it sort of felt freeing to not be tied down to a pumping schedule and luckily I was able to maintain my milk supply at 2 pumps per days for over 2 years.

I have a love / hate relationship with my pump, I feel lost when it breaks and need to replace parts. Its a part of my body, its hard to explain but I'm sure other EPers might know what I'm talking about when I say that it becomes our most precious yet hated possession.

January 2014 marked 3 years of exclusive pumping, looking back it has been a journey filled will late nights, fear, hardships and tears, but it is also a journey of dedication, self-growth and pure unadulterated love, and its a journey I wouldn't change for the world! Hoping for a few more years so we can get J over her issues with food!

*UPDATE: On July 22nd 2015, I officially weaned due to PCOS and insulin resistance related supply issues, I was able to provide breastmilk for 54 months with enough stash to make it just past my daughters 5th birthday, she is still struggling with feeding and sensory issues and has a diagnosis of ARFID which we continue to work on in the hopes that in the future she will develop a healthy attitude towards healthy food.

Exclusively pumping is HARD, but then again, nothing in life that is worthwhile doing is ever easy.

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BEST BOTTLES: Medela Calma Feeding Device

Medela Calma Feeding Device and Bottles

I remember reading a magazine 3 years back and seeing an advert on the Medela Calma, I had wanted to try the feeding device out but unfortunately my little one was pretty particular about her current bottle and it had been a pretty intense fight to get her to take breastmilk from anything other than a 3ml syringe so I daren’t even try switching, ever!!!

I did however buy the bottles and feeding devices as a gift for a friend for her baby shower last year. She recently returned to work and gave the Medela Calma feeding devices a try, here’s what she had to say about them:

“I had received 3 Medela Calma feeding devices and bottles as gifts for my baby shower, I had managed to successfully breastfeed for the first 6 and a half months at the breast and then it was time to return to work where I planned on expressing and having my son bottle fed at grandma’s.

At first I was a little weary as the nipples looked a little complicated and I wondered how my baby would manage on the nipple, to be honest I even gave them a go myself with a bottle of juice!

It took 3 attempts to get my son drinking from the bottle, my mother-in-law had no issues with my son drinking, he winded easily, had no reflux or colic and experienced very little to no stomach discomfort at all because he didn’t gulp down the breastmilk like on a normal teat.
He also transitioned easily between breast and bottle and we have no preference issues at all, I guess he either doesn’t mind where his milk comes from or he doesn’t notice the difference much as drinking from the Calma’s are just so similar to drinking at the breast.

All in all, I love my Calma feeding devices and have even bought 6 more and have been able to use them with other brands of bottles.

Mandy – Mom to Garvin (7months)”

An inside look at the design of the feeding device

It is such a pleasure to see that Medela has put in so much effort and research into producing a feeding device that so closely mimics the natural feeding action of an infant on the breast, we can only hope that in the years to come other manufacturers will realise the importance of breastmilk and promoting and protecting the mother and child breastfeeding relationship and follow suit.

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Dont Overlook The Trusty Manual Pump

When researching the net for information on Exclusively Pumping you may find many articles such as this one, and while the information is helpful there is one point I completely disagree with.

You DON’T need an industrial or hospital grade pump to successfully EP, you don’t even need a top of the range double electric in order to be successful!

Hiring a hospital grade pump is expensive, and in todays economy who can really spend the odd R500 a month on hiring a breast pump? You may as well just switch over to formula because it works out slightly cheaper and is far less demanding than exclusively pumping and for most moms spending that much is just not an option and can be completely off putting to the idea of providing baby with breastmilk, not to mention the added stress of having to find the finances to cover such a cost on top of the already debilitating stress of feeling as though they have failed at breastfeeding and the constant worry about supply!
Likewise as awesome as the top of the range double electric pumps are and the fact that they can make moms life a little easier, again, they are not completely necessary and can also be very costly.

I, from personal experience, feel that most moms, and even LC’s, overlook the good quality manual pumps on the South African market as an option, pumps like the Philips Avent manual and the Medela Harmony are both high quality pumps which are able to withstand the demands of exclusively pumping and even exclusively pumping long term.
In fact I would be so bold as to claim that in some instances a manual pump is not only easier, but can also be more efficient than a double electric.
Again it comes down to personal preference and which pump a mother is able to better respond to.

There is no disputing that double electric breastpumps are more convenient for busy, working moms or that they are able to stimulate prolactin levels from double pumping, but you are literally plugged into the same wall for a large portion of your day and lugging around a pump can become tiring whereas a good quality manual pump has a certain freedom and ease, not to mention that suction is completely adjustable so pumping sessions are often shorter.

I would however caution against investing in smaller, less efficient manual breast pumps on the market such as Lanisoh, Pigeon, Dr Browns, Chicco and Tommee Tippee, while these pumps are perfectly suited to occasional pumping sessions, the suction, handle mechanism and durability are not suited to the high demands of being an exclusive pumper.

I believe that in order to help moms who choose, or are forced to EP due to circumstance, reach their personal breastfeeding goals that we need to be realistic with them and provide new mothers with not only frank, honest and factual information, but also convenient and economical options. I find that peddling the most expensive and unnecessary option as the “only option” is counter productive in helping moms who wish to provide their babies with breastmilk but are unable to do so.

Exclusive pumping is hard, it takes a lot of dedication and time regardless of the pump you use and a healthy frame of mind, realistic expectations and a firm belief in the benefits of providing breastmilk to not only baby, but mother aswell is half the battle won.
Exclusive pumping is still a viable long term option for mothers who are unable or are not willing to nurse at the breast, it just doesn’t mean that you need to take out that second bond on your house in order to have the right equipment!

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COMING SOON!

Keep an eye out for our next big competition!

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