Breast massage is a useful tool when it comes to pumping and breast feeding it helps us to mentally and emotionally prepare for breast feeding. We might be somebody who has not touched our breasts very much before we were pregnant.
We are not in a culture where that something we regularly do, and we know that when mums do touch their breasts in late pregnancy and when baby arrived it can help them feel a bit more confident about breastfeeding overall. Breast massage can also help us physically prepare for pumping and breastfeeding.When were stroking the breast were going to be stimulating blood flow and that can help with increasing the hormonal release we need that oxytocin hormone to arrive in the breasts to help contract and help make the milk flow more easily.
When you do breast massage there is not one way of doing it , you will develop your own personal techniques. Most people combine a technique of stroking around the outside of the breast where the milk producing areas are, with stroking down towards the nipple,some people might do a little bit of nipple stimulation as well, we know that can also help with the oxytocin release. Some people will do it with one hand,do not forget to go underneath where some of those milk producing areas are. Some people might want to do breast massage with both hands.
We are not doing it for a really long time, five to ten minutes, before your pump will be fine that should not be too short that should get enough of the active stuff happening and you can continue doing massage while you are pumping as well. If you are using the Optiflow insert for example, which you can buy as a separate accessory, or it might come with your Ardo pump the Optiflow insert is 26mm but it needs to go in the 31 mm shell if you are doing pumping with the Optiflow insert you can put your fingers between the Optiflow and the breast shell so you are not breaking the seal, you are still able to pump, but youre doing a little bit of massage while you are pumping. Or if that a bit too fiddly just carry on massaging around the outside of the breast, and when you finish pumping you may carry on doing some massage in combination with hand expression to help you just get a little bit more of that high fat content milk out.
Massage is also often used when mums are worried about blocked ducts. If you have a particularly firm area in the breast you might do some more localized massage in that area, and you might might use something like an electric tooth brush as well just to help break up any kinds of blocked ducts in your breast.But overall massage is something that just going to help us make breast feeding a bit more effective and particularly is going to help with the pumping output.
As I said it does not have to take a long time you might be somebody that only needs to do two or three minutes, just see what feels right for you but it a good idea to add it into your regime. It helps us mentally get ready for pumping and helps us physically as well.
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