Case Study | Diminishing Supply on One Side

Mum: Kieu Nguyen

Journey: Expressing frequently with another pump, but supply quickly diminishing.

From Kieu:

"Recently I became a mother of two to a five year old active boy and a now 4 week old newborn baby girl. Since the gap between both kids isn’t exactly small, I once again found myself with the challenge of having to adapt to life raising another little fully dependent human being whist recovering from labour
that required more post-partum care than my previous.

I had always believed in both the nutritional as well as health and well-being benefits that breastfeeding can provide for little babies so I was determined that provided there were no complications/supply issues, I was always going to breastfeed my children for at least the first few months of their lives to
provide them with the best nutrients possible naturally and assist their little immune systems despite how hard and time-consuming breastfeeding can be.

With my first child I was exclusively breastfeeding for six months and toward the last 4 months I was finding that my baby was preferring to feed on one side as opposed to the other side that had a faster flow. As the demand for one side grew, supply on the other was diminishing so I invested in some time each day to pump that side with a single manual pump. The pumping itself took ages and made me a bit sore and I went from pumping 90mls each time and that gradually reduced over time until I can barely get 20mls in 20 mins so I stopped altogether and just feed exclusively on one side which was a mistake on my behalf.

With this second one, I was once again determined to breastfeed exclusively and once again find that one boob was being preferred over the other. For the first two weeks I was pumping the non preferred side with the same branded single electric pump but found it time consuming and I had to pump with it plugged in as the separate battery pack wasn’t appealing to me to use. It took about 20 -30 mins to pump 20 to 30mls so I had to find a better resource to invest in as the expressed milk was a great way for my husband to feed and bond with our baby and spared me some time when I need to do things but among the challenges of house chores and another demanding kid, I can’t afford to waste any precious minutes sitting there pumping away for half an hour each time.

My sister who became a new mum recently was happily and efficiently building up her milk supply so she introduced me to the Milkbar Advanced Flow double pump. I decided to invest in it based on her rave reviews so I was pleasantly surprised as I was pumping the same amount in 10 mins with no pain whatsoever the first time I used it. As my milk supply had slightly increased since, I’m still using the pump mainly for one side and can now get almost 100mls from just that one side whist my baby feeds on the other and the whole process take about 15 mins which saves me a lot of time and pain.

The system itself is very easy to use, the pack is portable, the battery long lasting and the pump itself is very comfortable so I would completely recommend this pump to any new mum's wishing to save time and effort so they can spend
more quality minutes with their precious little ones since they grow up way too fast!"