Reflections on Pumping

I recently joined an online group for parents of preemies. Sometimes it makes me cry. Sometimes it makes me feel lucky. But it always always makes me feel normal, like I'm not alone and not crazy because I hear my own thoughts and feelings so reguarly echoed in those of other preemie parents.

I saw a post on someone having emotional issues with pumping, and as a Queen pumper myself, I had to respond. It gave me a chance to reflect back on the pumping journey. At 6 weeks when I was at my lowest, I never thought I would make it to 12 weeks, let alone to 15. I could never have done it if I was still pumping 8 times a day, but by cutting down my pumps Liam still gets some breastmilk, and he also gets a much happier more engaged mom.

Here's what I wrote to that other mom:

I felt so much angst and guilt about pumping, even though I can now see looking back that I was pumping myself into a black hole that made me no kind of mother.

When I found out I was PPROM and delivered just shy of 34 weeks, I felt so horribly guilty that my body had failed my baby, I could barely forgive myself. Even though I did everything anyone ever recommended to me, it still wasnt enough. And so my milk became a sort of salvation. You read so much in the popular press about how it is perfect and it is liquid gold and even if I had failed my baby in that one huge way, my milk was this way to make up for it by providing to him something that only I could provide.

But by the end of the first week it was clear something was wrong. I was pumping 9 times a day for 20 minutes and still I had 1/3 of the full supply. After a series of lactation consultants I was eventually diagnosed with insufficient glandular tissue to provide a full supply. I wept. I had failed him again.

The day my baby left the NICU was the first time he had to be supplemented with formula because his hunger had finally outpaced my meager production. I held him in the special chair we bough to rock him and cried the whole time I fed it to him. But supplementing him wasnt as hard as the decision to give up on doing everything to make milk.

At this point I was on prescription drugs to increase my supply, the side effect of which is depression. I was taking herbal supplements 3x daily as well. my breasts ached constantly from carrying more milk than nature intended for them. I pumped round the clock and spend more time with my pump than my kid. I enviously watched my husband cuddle and feed our child.

it was agonizing, but very very worth it to drop off the pumps. After my 6 week check up I went from pumping 9 times a day to gradually decreasing to 4 times a day. I found 4 x daily a huge life improvement, and I only went from 16 oz daily when pumping 9 times to 13 oz when pumping 4 times. TOTALLY WORTH IT. I was happier and spending more time with my baby. I coasted at 4x daily until just recently. When I went down to 3x so I could get a little sleep my supply dropped off. Now i'm down to 2x for 8oz daily. I'll be sad when he gets his last bit of breastmilk.

And take comfort in this: I'm a PhD so I used my university access to actually read the medical studies on the benefits of breastmilk and I tell you that the popular press has vastly overstated the benefits of breastmilk. At least as far as research is able to determine, there are marginal benefits. In studies where they look at two kids in the same family with different breastfeeding histories, almost all of the usual "benefits" show up as insignificant. Perhaps this is a bit of sour grapes because I would certainly breastfeed if I could. But there is no evidence that you are damning your child to be obese, have high blood pressure, diabetes, be stupid or any of the other oft-touted health benefits of breastmilk over formula. Either way, from what science can determine, it is certainly not worth killing yourself over, which is what I was doing.

its tough to say no to competitive momming--to think that maybe someone else out there was enduring and pumping when you feel you can't go on-- or to feel you arent sacrificing everything if it would help you child. But a half dead mommy who is miserable from the pump is not good for you and certainly not good for your kiddo.