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 Pediatricians recommend that mothers exclusively breastfeed infants
until at least 6 months of age because it can reduce babies’ risk of
ear and respiratory infections, sudden infant death syndrome,
allergies, childhood obesity and diabetes.
But preemies often can’t breastfeed because they’re too tiny and
lack the muscle strength and coordination to nurse, so they need
pumped milk.
Even with the right equipment, making this happen takes a lot of
time and hard work, particularly if women are recovering from
cesarean deliveries or traveling a great distance to visit babies
that remain hospitalized after their mothers are discharged, said
lead study author Mary Fewtrell of the UCL Institute of Child Health
in London.
“They will have to persevere with milk expression for a long time
before the infant can be fully breast fed, and this requires a lot
of effort,” Fewtrell added by email.
Pregnancy typically lasts about 40 weeks, and infants born after 37
weeks are considered full term. In the weeks immediately after
birth, premature infants often have difficulty breathing and
digesting food. They can also encounter longer-term challenges such
as impaired vision, hearing and cognitive skills as well as social
and behavioral problems.
The study focused on some of the most vulnerable preemies: those
born before 34 weeks gestation.
To see what factors might influence how easy it is for mothers to
feed these preemies breast milk, Fewtrell and colleagues analyzed
data on 62 mothers who participated in a study of different types of
breast pumps.
As part of this experiment, the women completed 10-day diaries
detailing the amount of milk they pumped as well as their opinions
about the experience of pumping.
Women expressed more milk when they used what’s known as a double
pump that extracts milk from both breasts at once, rather than a
single pump that only attaches to one breast at a time, the study
found.
Over 10 days, half of the women using double pumps typically
expressed about 109 grams (about 4 ounces) more per day than the
mothers using single pumps, the study found.
More frequent pumping sessions also helped increase the total amount
of breast milk the mothers could provide their babies.
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Beyond its small size, another limitation of the study is its
reliance on women to visually estimate the amount of milk they
expressed when they pumped, the authors note in the Archives of
Disease in Childhood – Fetal and Neonatal Edition.
Even so, the findings add to a growing body of evidence showing the
benefits of double-pumping frequently to help establish a milk
supply and produce enough to feed an infant, said JoAnne Flagg, a
lactation specialist at Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing
in Baltimore who wasn’t involved in the study.
“No pump is as efficient as a baby as they use the suction of their
mouth and mechanical extraction with their tongue,” Flagg noted.
But pumping both breasts increases levels of prolactin, a hormone
involved in milk production, and increases mammary gland
stimulation.
Supplementing with hand expression can also help increase the volume
of milk produced, as can making sure the flanges on the pump – the
parts that go against the breast – are the right size for the
nipple, Flagg added.
SOURCE: http://bit.ly/23IggFF Archives of Disease in Childhood –
Fetal and Neonatal Edition, online March 2, 2016.
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