Breast milk “pump” out

The breast can be emptied manually or with a pump. The pumping out is suitable for bridging periods when breastfeeding is temporarily not possible and for creating a supply of breast milk. Good hygiene should be ensured.

Before expressing breast milk, wash your hands and put the pump in the dishwasher. If the baby is sick or premature, the hygiene measures should be tightened. Daily showering and daily bra change as well as a short cleaning of the breasts directly before pumping are recommended.

The first pumped drops of breast milk should be discarded and the pump boiled. Which pump is suitable depends on your needs. If used regularly, an electric pump for pumping out the breast milk is recommended.

As soon as a pump is necessary from a medical point of view, a pump on prescription is available. The breast should be slightly warmed and/or massaged before pumping. The simultaneous pumping of both breasts stimulates the production of milk particularly well, but is only possible with a double pump.With a single pump, the side must be changed after a few minutes and the process takes about twice as long as with the double pump (30 min).

Manual emptying is particularly suitable for relieving the breasts if there is too much breast milk. This causes the pressure to decrease and, unlike the pump, does not additionally stimulate the production of milk. Warmth and a light massage are recommended before emptying.

During the subsequent emptying process, the nipples should never be touched – the pressure is always only distributed around the nipples. As in the C-grip, the thumb, index and middle finger are used to wipe out the milk lakes in the immediate vicinity of the nipples. Then the fingers should be reapplied in a radius of a few centimeters around the nipple. The thumb is again above the nipple, the index and middle finger below the nipple. Now the breast is raised rhythmically one after the other, the fingers are pressed against the chest and then the thumb and index finger are pressed against each other sliding forward.