Stimulate milk production: First trust your body
Stay relaxed and trust your body. If everything is anatomically and medically in order and you are doing everything right when breastfeeding, your body will regulate milk production on its own. You do not need to stimulate it.
In the first few days after birth, small amounts of milk are completely normal. By the fourth day after birth, the amount of milk increases from a small amount of colostrum to about 500 milliliters. Milk production is stimulated by hormones – but only in the first few days. After that, it is especially important to latch the baby on often or to empty the breast regularly, because without the stimulus of sucking, the amount of milk is reduced.
The size of the breasts says nothing about the amount of milk – even small breasts produce enough breast milk! So stimulating milk production because of a smaller cup size is not necessary.
Breastfeeding: Not enough milk?
Before you agonize over the question “How can I get more breast milk?” or try to increase milk production with various home remedies, you need to clarify whether you actually produce too little milk when breastfeeding or whether it just feels that way. To do this, you don’t have to pump milk to accurately determine the amount. The following signs are relatively good indicators that your baby is getting enough supply:
- Weight gain: reaching birth weight after two weeks, at least 20 grams per day or 140 grams per week
- Regularly full diapers: Increase in the amount of urine in the first few weeks
- Changed stool in the first week: change from meconium to mushy yellow stool
- Awake, lively and balanced baby with rosy skin
- Saturation signs after breastfeeding: Satisfaction and rest
After the initial swelling of the mammary glands, it is also possible to tell from the breasts whether the baby has had a good feed: The breast feels fuller before breastfeeding than after.
Stimulating milk production: finding and avoiding breastfeeding errors
If there are indications that the baby is not getting enough milk, breastfeeding errors are usually the reason:
- Incorrect latch-on technique
- Poor sucking technique: pacifier, nursing cap, suction confusion
- Poor breastfeeding management: irregular, restricted breastfeeding times, separation of mother and baby
- Too infrequent pumping
- Giving tea, water, milk
By avoiding these mistakes, you can stimulate milk production – all by itself!
The following are conducive and helpful:
- Early latch-on right after birth
- Clarify latch-on/pumping technique with midwife
- Breastfeed regularly
- Offer both sides of the breast
- Allow to drink for a long time
- Avoid confusion of suckling
- Breastfeed frequently as needed
- Lots of body and skin contact
Stimulate milk production: Medical reasons for insufficient milk
Sometimes, however, medical problems in the mother also lead to insufficient milk production. In this case, it cannot be stimulated with simple tips. Often, however, treatment of the medical condition can indirectly increase milk production.
Diseases that can be responsible for insufficient breast milk are:
- Placental retention (placentaretention): Progesterone prevents milk production
- Severe blood loss at birth
- Hypothyroidism
- Diabetes mellitus
- Disease of the pituitary gland
- Breast surgery, radiation
- Polycystic ovary syndrome
In addition, anatomical malpositions in the child’s jaw region (shortened lingual frenulum, cleft lip and palate) can make successful feeding difficult, weaken the sucking stimulus and impair milk production.
Stimulating milk production with active ingredients
In the case of some herbal remedies such as the seeds of fenugreek (Trigonella foenum-graecum) and milk thistle (Silybum marianum), scientific studies indicate that they may stimulate milk production. However, caution is advised due to allergic reactions, impurities or incorrect dosage. Fenugreek, along with fennel, anise and caraway, is often found in breastfeeding or lactation teas. They are supposed to stimulate milk formation, but their effect has not really been proven – but they do no harm either.
Stimulate milk production: What does not help
We hear time and again that a glass or two of champagne or beer is supposed to stimulate milk production. But the opposite is true: alcohol inhibits oxytocin and thus the milk-giving reflex. Medications such as amphetamines as well as drugs also impair milk production.
