hi everyone in today's video we're going to be talking about oversupply of milk or overproduction
of milk so stay tuned to the end of the video to learn about what is an oversupply some symptoms of
an oversupply what causes it and what you can do about it my name is Kassi Reyes I am a registered
nurse and a board certified lactation consultant and i am also the co-founder of people's lactation
here in Washington dc we do have virtual visits available I'll leave a link for that down below
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so what is an oversupply exactly and how do you know if you have one oversupply is when your milk
production is higher than the nutritional needs of your baby what are some symptoms of an over supply
and how do you know if you have an over supply we're going to talk about how the symptoms of an
oversupply can show up both in the parent and in the baby in the case of the parent
an oversupply can lead to poor drainage of the breast or chest tissue which in turn can lead
to clogged ducts and can have this cascading effect of the milk just sitting in the tissue
which then can lead to clogged ducts it can lead to mastitis or an infection of the tissue
and if it gets really bad it can lead to an abscess which is basically
a pocket of an infection that you need to have surgically taken care of in a lot of cases
both mastitis and an abscess would probably require you to be on antibiotics
most people notice that they have an oversupply when they start noticing symptoms in their baby
so your baby may do quicker than normal feeds they may seem hungry very frequently
even though they just ate they may pull off of the nipple frequently they might bite down on
the nipple during a feed to help slow down the flow because an oversupply also tends to go hand
in hand with a fast milk ejection reflex or fast let down you may notice that your baby is choking
or gagging on the milk at the breast and that's why they're pulling back a lot your baby might
be really gassy or colicky this may be caused by what is known in lactation as a hindmilk- foremilk
imbalance. A foremilk-hindmilk imbalance is when your baby isn't getting the right balance of these
two types of milk and i'll explain the difference so your foremilk is more abundant in the breast
or chest tissue it is high in carbohydrates it's high in milk sugar lactose and it's also
contains a hunger hormone called ghrelin so that's why when your baby gets a lot of this foremilk
which is more present in a full breast or chest the your baby may seem hungry more frequently
when your baby fills up on this for milk they're going to get a little bit less hindmilk.
Hind milk is more abundant in a less full breast or chest and the hindmilk is higher in fats,
and ... it's just more calorie dense in general. So when your baby has an imbalance
or is getting too much foremilk because of an oversupply you may see that your baby is gassy,
their Gastrointestinal system is kind of overloaded with that lactose from the foremilk
they may be extra gassy they may be colicky. Sometimes a telltale sign of an oversupply is
when your baby may have green or frothy poops this is caused by that kind of overcharging the
GI system with that that milk sugar or lactose so the discomfort that we're seeing in baby combined
with the discomfort that we're often seeing in the parent from decreased or poor emptying
often leads to a cascade of problems that may end up leading to early weaning so what are the causes
of oversupply and what can you do about it? so one of the initial causes of oversupply can be
too much stimulation with a pump early on or overuse of galactagogues, which are herbs or
foods that can increase your meal supply it could also be caused by some prescription medications
so if you are experiencing an oversupply you could examine your medication list and talk to
your provider about possible side effects and then there is what's known as idiopathic oversupply
or unknown cause some people just have a bit of a hormone imbalance or they just have excess
capacity of their tissue and experience an oversupply that lasts beyond the first couple
weeks postpartum. so the good news is there are a few things you can do to manage and oversupply
and some of them are pretty simple that you can try on your own and some of them are a little bit
more complex and you might want to work with a professional. the first is optimizing the
latch so figuring out the right time in the right position for latching sometimes you may need to
express a little bit through that first let down before you put your baby on and that way the let
down isn't as quick or fast and furious when your baby's first latching on sometimes doing
a laid back position, and for information on how to set that up i'll leave a video up above,
a laid back position can help with gravity not moving the milk out as quickly so if you're laying
back and your baby is on top of you feeding it can help with that fast let down. frequent burping can
also help so if you take little breaks for baby to burp, it can help with some of that gassiness
and colicky-ness that we talked about earlier. so the second thing you might need to do is to modify
your feeding or your pumping schedule or both and this step i would recommend that you are working
with a lactation consultant to make sure that you don't over so that you don't overdo it on
down regulating your milk supply because some of these things can really have a quick impact but
you may need to work on decreasing the amount of time that you're pumping or the frequency
which would be done really slowly you would do a slow taper on the pumping or you could
be recommended to do what is called block feeding. block feeding is where your baby
eats on one side for a designated amount of time so your baby would eat for example on the
left side for three hours and then they would have access to the right side for three hours
and this helps them get more access to the hind milk on that side and also it helps send
signals to the other side to slow down production by having that tissue be so full of milk.
however if you are doing this it's important to keep an eye out for signs and symptoms of plugged
ducts and if you're feeling really overly full in the beginning of starting some block feeding
your lactation consultant might have you do a teeny tiny bit of emptying for a couple of minutes
just to prevent any block ducts from happening. another thing that can be helpful are there are
some herbs like peppermint or sage, there's a few others that can lower milk supply...you
definitely want to do, anything that you take medication-wise or herb-wise you would want to
check with your doctor with your lactation consultant and make sure that you're doing
it in the safest way possible if these last three steps don't really help the final step is probably
some sort of medical intervention or taking a medication sometimes medications like Sudafed
that dry up secretions can lower your milk supply but this is something definitely to be done with
a provider due to potential side effects and it also works really fast so you don't want to
overdo it because even one dose of Sudafed can actually decrease your milk supply by a quarter,
and other medications are available that lower the amount of prolactin or oxytocin in your body
and in turn lowering your milk supply so talk to your doctor and your lactation consultant about
what would be the best option for you all right. this video was actually made um after a question
was asked on one of my other videos about whether or not oversupply and an imbalance of
lactose was actually a thing so now you know there's the answer i hope that that was helpful
if you guys have any other topics that you want me to cover or questions that you want me to address
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talk to you all next week i hope that you found this video helpful and i'll talk to you soon bye