Hands-on Pumping

A well-attached baby is the most effective way to remove milk from the breast. Feeding your baby whenever they want, for as long as they want, will establish and maintain your milk production, and is also the best way to restore it after breastfeeding challenges. More out equals more in.

There are times when you want or need to remove milk without your baby. Expressing breastmilk occasionally or regularly is part of some people's breastfeeding journey.

Reasons to express include:

Your baby is still establishing effective milk removal

You are managing blocked ducts or mastitis You are collecting milk to donate or share

You are separated from your premature or sick baby

You are returning to work or study

You are occasionally away from your baby for short periods

You are relactating after a break from Feeding

You want to store some milk in your freezer

You can express milk with just your hands and a clean container. This is a learned skill, improving with practice, and is often more effective than a breast pump. Compressing the breast tissue uses positive pressure to squeeze milk.

A breast pump is another way to remove milk. A manual pump is fully portable, nearly silent and simple to use. It uses negative pressure to create a vacuum to remove milk.

Electric breast pumps also create a vacuum with negative pressure. They work with variable speeds and strength, allowing you to simply hold the kit to the breast. Double pumps can collect milk from both breasts at the same time, halving the total expressing period.

When you combine hand expressing with a breast pump, you can increase the overall total of milk collected by using positive and negative pressure. We call this Hands-on Expressing/Pumping.

This technique has been shown to consistently collect around twice the volume of available milk from the breast.

Learning how to use this technique is useful for maximising the milk you can remove from the breast. This is especially useful if you are restoring your milk supply due to attachment or other challenges; you are regularly separated from your baby; or you are exclusively pumping due to preterm delivery or complications with your baby's feeding.

Watch the video to see how to include hands-on pumping in your expressing technique. https://med.stanford.edu/newborns/professional-education/breastfeeding/maximizing-milk-production.html