As you know, I am slightly obsessed with Breast Feeding since I had such a hard time with Baby Bear and didn't get enough milk.
I prayed that I would not have the same issue with Mini, so we monitored it very closely with weight checks every few days in the first few weeks. The verdict was in that I have Insufficient Glandular Tissue sometimes called IBT also. You can read about it here. I can produce some milk, but not enough for Mini to thrive on so I have to supplement. Mini has horrible gas and bloating plus always sounded congested so I tried several types of formula on her and nothing really helped.
What if I could just give her breast milk though?
So I am not into actually having someone physically nurse my baby (besides me) I just needed some milk.
I looked into 'eats on feets' with Baby Bear
{a group of women that have milk needs or donations for no charge} but was not brave enough to try it. I took a leap of
Mini's Donor Milk
faith for Mini and I met a donor in the area and got all of her medical history from their Doctor to make sure that she had no communicable diseases and then took home a bag of frozen milk. Mini has been nursing and drinking the donor milk for less then a day, but so far she already slept better at night. I will update as we grow on Mommas' Milk!
I was unsure if I wanted to share this on my blog, but I wanted to reach out to others that could benefit from using 'eats of feets' for their own babies benefit and hope that others in the same situation will reach out to me to support me.
And hey, everyone is doing it..
Kim & Kourtney Kardashian are going to cross-nurse so milk sharing seems pretty boring!
image from today.com
I had IGT, and supplemented with milk from several nearby donors I found through two Facebook groups -- Eats on Feets and Human Milk 4 Human Babies. Even though La Leche League officially does not support milk sharing, I met another donor at a LLL meeting.
ReplyDeleteWe supplemented with formula for the first month before we found out about milk-sharing, then mainly supplemented with human milk for the next five months. I used a supplemental nursing system (SNS) a few times a day in place of bottles to help promote my own milk supply and keep my son from developing a preference for bottles over nursing. I tried both the Medela starter SNS and Lact-Aid, and found the Medela system a little easier to use. I also tried to promote my own milk production by pumping in between nursing sessions, taking domperidone/motillium (ordered from inhousepharmacy.biz), Mother Love More Milk Special Blend capsules (amazon), and Fenugreek, and eating lots of oatmeal. I saw two lactation consultants and went to numerous LLL meetings. My supply dropped when I went back to work and was no longer nursing throughout the day even though I was still pumping every 2-3 hours, and it dropped again when I stopped the domperidone at 4 months, so I think those things were worth the trouble.
Mothers can easily drive themselves crazy trying to do everything possible to give their kids the best. I'm not advocating that other mothers with IGT try all the things I tried, and I'm not sure what I'll do differently next time. No matter what, parenting is an unpredictable adventure, and we're all just trying to do the best we can. I hope milk sharing becomes more popular since it has been a huge form of support for me and other women with IGT.