Newbie here needing some information

February 2, 2012

We are just now starting the adoption process. It will take a few months to get everything with our agency in place and then we are officially on the waiting list. We've been told to expect to wait 12-18 months.

I am very interested in breastfeeding an adopted baby and have done a bit of research, but am kind of overwhelmed right now.

Our situation is kind of unique I think. We will not know that our baby is here until the day we take him/her home. Our agency goes to the hospital when the baby is born and keeps him/her for the five day waiting period that our state has where the birth mother can change her mind and decide to parent. The agency won't even tell us if we've been matched to a birth mother. It's their way of reducing our risk.

So, I'm not sure when I should start any of the different protocols or even what protocol to use. I also work, so it will be kind of difficult to pump throughout the day like I have read you need to do.

Any suggestions for me on what direction I should be looking?

noelani2

February 6, 2012

I am very familiar with your situation, as far as not knowing anything in advance, because that is how it was with most of ours. With our first two, the agency gave us a minimum of 12 months before they would consider us for a baby. Beyond that, they could only tell us that it would most likely be somewhere in the next 6-24 months after that. With each of them, we had less than 24 hours notice before we went to the agency and picked them up.

One possibility for you is to do what I did and that is to just be prepared to start nursing when the baby comes. If you have the Lact-Aid, you can start feeding and nurturing the baby at the breast, whether you are producing any milk yet, or not. For moms who just start feeding on demand that way, with no advanced preparation, milk production usually starts after anywhere from three days to two weeks. It starts with drops, then the amount will gradually increase until the amount of time spent nursing decreases, usually when the baby starts getting a significant amount of other foods. Moms who do that, without doing any pumping or taking any medications, usually get to the point of producing somewhere around half of the total milk the baby needs, before he/she is taking any other foods. Even a few ounces of breast milk a day, in addition to formula, provides important protection against illness, and most moms produce a lot more than that. The relationship aspects of it are the same as any other mom and baby. Many adoptive moms, myself included, feel that the relationship would be well worth the effort, even if we never produced any milk.

In addition to feeding with the Lact-Aid, you can add herbs, like fenugreek, and eat oatmeal, to increase milk production. There is also a Filipino vegetable I have recently heard of that is supposed to help increase milk production.

Another thing you can do is take domperidone. It has never been approved by the USFDA, although it has been widely used in other countries for more than 20 years, now. There are ways of getting it, now, over the internet. It is the only medication that I am convinced is both safe and effective for use with induced lactation. You can also take it before you have a baby, and do some pumping, Where you aren't going to have any notice, you could do something like pump 3-4 times a day, to get some milk production going in advance, if you wanted to. Pumping without using domperidone isn't anywhere near as effective. A baby at the breast increases prolactin levels enough to produce milk, but a pump, alone, doesn't usually do anywhere near as well at convincing our never-pregnant (or not recently pregnant) bodies to produce milk. I've always been really cautious about recommending that moms pump in advance because I have seen so many who have been so discouraged because they didn't see milk from pumping that they gave up on the whole idea before they even got their babies. Just remember that pumping in advance is totally optional.

It is also very important to learn about breastfeeding, in general. One of the things that really limited me with my first baby was that I didn't know how to position him to get him latched properly. I've always said that the first time I nursed him, it was a combination of joy and pain. I got a lot of nipple damage, so much that I couldn't bring myself to nurse him more than four times a day. I realized, later, that I should have read a breastfeeding book. I had learned what I could about the specifics of nursing an adopted baby, but didn't know that adoptive mothers actually need to learn almost everything a bio mom does, with the adoptive stuff in addition.

It is a good idea to attend a breastfeeding class or series of La Leche League meetings, if you can. Don't expect the people there to be experts on adoption or induced lactation, but they will know about positioning, latch, and lots of tips for managing feeding and mothering infants. They will also think you are doing something wonderful, which can be a real shot in the arm.

Good luck to you!

Darillyn

Oh, almost forgot, here is the link the Lact-Aid site: [url=http://www.lact-aid.com]Welcome to Lact-Aid[/url]