Study develops technique to help moms find more success in breastfeeding premature babies

The benefits of breastfeeding newborns are well-known. As Lynda Haddon writes on her Multiple Births website, “Mother’s milk provides superior nutrition, protects against disease and enhances infant development.” However, Haddon notes multiple births often present a complication in the process: premature birth. Indeed, statistically, 57 percent of twins and 93 percent of triplets are born prematurely.

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“For parents of multiples wishing to breast feed their babies, the extent of the babies prematurity can impact breast feeding success,” Haddon adds.

When babies are premature by four or more weeks, they are usually too tiny and weak to take the breast, which means mom needs to pump her breast to establish a milk flow and to have milk for feeding the baby or babies. This process of using a suction pump to express breast milk is difficult for many moms. But now, researchers at Lucile Packard Children's Hospital and the Stanford University School of Medicine have perfected a technique that promises to change that. Researchers studied 67 new mothers of premature infants, and taught them a “simple, safe and free tool for assisting breast milk production: their own hands”.

“In the study, 67 new mothers of premature infants learned how to combine an electric breast pump with hand-expression techniques to extract milk,” a review of the study by The Medical News explains. “Unlike prior research showing poor milk production in preemies' moms, the subjects who used both hands and pump established plentiful milk supplies. By the end of the eight-week study, their average milk production exceeded the amount needed to feed a healthy 3-month-old, even though none of the women studied could nurse when their babies were born. The findings could have implications for women who have full-term infants, too.”
“…Once milk came in, mothers came to Packard Children's for regular, monitored pumping sessions,” the review continues. “They were instructed how to use their hands, while pumping, to massage and compress areas of the breasts that felt firm. (The study techniques are demonstrated online.)”

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To read more about this study: Technique helps preemies’ moms to improve milk supply

For more information on breastfeeding multiples: Breastfeeding premature twins and triplets; Breastfeeding premature multiples

Study develops technique to help moms find more success in breastfeeding premature babies