How To Pump Breast Milk

Breastfeeding your baby is one of the most loved jobs by any new momma. But when it’s time to get back to work or to the town for shopping, you are left bewildering as to how to feed your baby. To solve this simple yet complicated problem, enter breast pumps. Women may look upon these breast pumps for a number of reasons. It could be to relieve engorgement, create a backup supply, or increase and maintain a constant breast milk supply to your baby. Doing so becomes extremely important, especially when you are away from your baby but do not want your baby to skip its daily dose of nutrition supply. Further, it stimulates your milk production, boosts your milk supply, and relieves you from the pain and pressure of sore nipples. But to get the hang of a breast pump, you need to first practice pumping a few weeks before you expose your baby to expressed milk. To make things easier for you and fill bottles of breast milk, here are two methods for pumping breast milk. Go through them and continue giving your baby the diet of breast milk.

Pumping Breast Milk

Pumping Breast Milk Manually

Wash your hands thoroughly before you begin pumping breast milk.
Massage your breasts a little or place a warm towel over them.
Sit up and lean forward. This will help in expressing more milk.
Using both your hands, hold one of the breasts at the outer portion, away from the areola (colored part around the nipple).
Place your other hand on the breast such that it forms a cup while holding. Position your fingers below the breast with the thumb above.
With your thumb and fingers, squeeze the breast gently and firmly. Repeat this process about 10 times at different points around the breast at same levels.
Draw your hands closer to the nipple while maintaining the cup position. Squeeze again forcing the milk to travel down to the areola from the milk ducts.
With your breast in one hand, express milk by pressing the outer edge of the areola. But do not squeeze the nipple.
Alternatively, you can hold your breast in one hand and pump milk using the palm of the other hand in the same manner.
Collect milk in a cup and stop pumping milk when it stops coming out like a jet and is expressed in drops.
Repeat with the other breast.

Pumping Breast Milk With A Pump

Before you begin with pumping breast milk with a breast pump, it is important to choose the right of pump depending upon how often you would use it and how much time you would devote to pumping. In case you are a working woman and find it hard to pump milk, go for a fully automatic pump so that you can pump both your breasts at the same time. However, if you require pumping only a few ounces occasionally, then an inexpensive manual pump would do the job.
Put a breast phalange (or shield) over your nipple, turn on the machine, and let the pump do its job of expressing milk in an attached container. This is the method that an electric pump follows.
For using a manual pump, you will have to manually squeeze the pump or pull the plunger with your hand, as opposed to the motor attached in an electric pump.
While a good electric pump will take about 10 to 15 minutes to pump milk from both your breasts, a hand pump requires 45 minutes to do the same job.
Alternately, you can also look onto buying a hands-free pumping bra so that you do not have to hold the phalanges on your breasts. With this method, you can enjoy reading a book or magazine, or dial a phone since your hands are free.

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