Milk in the Raw

You don't realize, until you have to extract it yourself, just how easily a baby suckles the milk from your breast. A mere 15 minutes work satisfies Maddie for hours, while the same 15 minutes by pump offers a meager two or three ounces. With patience and persistence, I can coax a full four ounces, but I'm seldom that patient. However, I have learned a few tricks that help to boost the output, the first being, never skip a pumping session. I pump nightly around 10:30, and if I skip a night or two, out of laziness, exhaustion or both, I see a decline in output the next time I pump. I've learned the exact pace at which to depress and releast that pump handle so that each squeeze adds the most it can to the bottle; I've learned to rotate the suction pad so that it squeezez different milk ducts later in the pumping; and I've learned that a hot shower or a warm rice compress can keep the flow coming longer.

It's fascinating, also, to see what my baby is consuming. I've read of foremilk and hindmilk, but seeing it fall into the bottle is really instructive -- first a clearish, thin liquid, then a thicker, whiter, milkier one. They say that the foremilk comes first to quench baby's thirst and the hindmilk provides the fat to keep her full. I never liked that as a reason for why the foremilk is thin. Yes, it might quench baby's thirst, but is that the reason it 's thin, or a consequence of it being thin? No. The real reason is that the fat globules in the milk get stuck in the ducts, and it takes a bit of sucking for the fat globules to let loose and allow the rest of the thicker milk to pour through.

Anyhow, I only need to pump enough milk for one feeding, four days a week. I have a stash of 6 four -ounce bottles in the freezer and I love seeing them there, lined up on the shelf like little soldiers, ready to serve at a moment's notice.