hi i'm dr sarah bjorkman and i am a board-certified ob gyn and first-time mom
this week i want to talk to you about something a lot
of breastfeeding or pumping moms think about and that is four ways to increase your supply
welcome back if this is your first time checking out this channel as i said i'm sarah i'm an ob gyn
and i'm half of the doctors bjorkman my husband kurt is a pediatrician and over the past year
we have been sharing with you all kind of our journey as we went from trying to conceive
through our pregnancy and postpartum and we've been sharing our medical expertise as well as
a lot of our in real life experiences as we've learned along the way so today i want to share
with you four tips for increasing your breast milk supply um and breastfeeding for sure has been
something i had some training in but really have picked up a lot in real life so the first tip for
increasing supply is to make sure you are emptying your breasts frequently um and this was a little
counter-intuitive for me at the beginning uh i remember i would feed cease and then
it you know she'd act hungry or it'd been an hour and i thought she seemed a little hungry or fussy
and i said well hang on we don't want to feed her yet i've got to give my boobs time to fill up
um or it's you know it's only been half an hour they need more time to fill up
well it's kind of backwards on how that works empty breasts fill a lot faster than full breasts
so when your boobs are empty it sends signals to your brain that says hey these boobs are empty we
need to be making more milk we need to fill those boobs up so brilliant um if your boobs are full
it's a signal to your brain that says hey this milk's just sitting there they don't need that
milk we don't need to fill up as fast so emptying your breasts frequently is really important
that's the concept of cluster feeding and power pumping which we're going to come to in a minute
but don't be surprised if in those early days right after your baby is born if you
are breastfeeding 8 to 12 to 16 plus times per day um i've got i kept track of it on this
little app and it was just so much breastfeeding cluster feeding sometimes it was every half an
hour sometimes it'd be two hours sometimes it'd be 45 minutes keep putting that baby to the breast
because it is a supply and demand system number two make sure that you are eating enough calories
your body is burning an extra 500 calories per day making milk for your baby and so you
need to make sure you are replacing that and then eating enough on top of it so
i remember the first week kurt went back to work and i was still home with cease i didn't
have somebody who was like feeding me constantly or making me lunch and i was home with the baby
and like slightly overwhelmed um and i didn't eat and i didn't drink very much and my supply
just kind of tanked um and i panicked and texted everyone i knew like what am i supposed to do
did i screw this up permanently and everybody was like take a deep breath it's fine um eat more and
drink more so i felt sometimes like i was some kind of professional athlete the amount
of food i was eating but i found my supply was very sensitive to eating enough calories
so that might be you make sure you're eating enough calories which ties into also make sure
you are drinking enough water you are making breast milk you are burning a lot of calories
and you need a lot of water to make that milk so i carry around my 32 ounce yeti all day
i try to drink one of these between each time i feed her so that is just and that's now that she's
a little bigger so i would say i was drinking at least three of these a day so that's 90 ounces
of water um and i would find when i would pump um or even when i pump at night now if i don't drink
a lot of water in the evening like after dinner i don't pump as much so stay hydrated okay
my fourth tip for increasing supply is to institute or start doing some power pumps
so power pumping is using your pump to mimic cluster feeding to tell your body we need to
increase the supply so to do a power pump you're going to pump for one hour but it's divided up so
you pump for 20 minutes and then you shut it off for 10 you pump for 10 more minutes and then you
rest for 10 and then you pump for 10 more minutes so you you're doing this for a total of an hour
it's not so much about the volume that you're getting at the beginning you're not trying to
like get a ton of milk for your baby it is telling your body that you need more milk and it's
mimicking that cluster feeding so you're going to want to do this every day you know try it for
a week usually you start to see an increase in your milk output the third fourth fifth day you
might start to notice a little more so try if you are having an issue with your supply try
power pumping once a day for a week again empty boobs fill faster so i know you are
thinking oh i'm i'm afraid i'm gonna pump and then baby's gonna have to eat
that's okay those empty boobs are gonna fill up faster and the fat content is higher um
in emptier breasts or when there's less milk so it's okay try this power pumping at some time in
your day that works for you and you your baby may be um in terms of when to institute the power pump
if your baby has a consistent time where they sometimes give you a longer stretch between feeds
you know maybe you get three hours after they go to sleep at night that's a great time to institute
a power pump um maybe early in the morning after they when they go down for their first nap maybe
you get a little bit longer time there so feed that baby wait an hour and then put those pumps
on and do a power hour so those are my four tips for increasing your breast milk supply um
those are the tried and true ways you know there's lots of thoughts about different
teas and different supplements and things like that i found that the calories were plenty i did
start eating oatmeal every day because there is some theory some thoughts that maybe oatmeal
helps increase your supply i think for me it was mostly a calories thing with something you can try
if you if these things aren't working and you are having issues still increasing your supply
talk to your ob gyn there are some medications um that you can take but getting plugged in with a
lactation consultant in ibclc in terms of figuring out some of these tips and tricks is essential so
mamas if you have any pro tips for increasing supply please leave them in the comments here
any favorite products or anything like that um things that worked for you share it with us all
we are in this together um hope you are having a great day and we will see you next week
we're doctors but not your doctors anything we've said in this video
is for education or entertainment purposes only it is not medical advice
any specific medical questions you have should be directed to your provider