Last

Tonight, I tried to express milk and this is all I got, 2.5 oz from both breasts.

And so, I've decided to stop my relationship with my PISA breastpump. We've had a good run and was able to provide my son with breastmilk every single day for almost 25 months.

I just found it appropriate that I produced the same amount of milk the first time I pumped and the last time I pumped :)

Thankfully, Swe-cha is handling his transition to fresh cow's milk extremely well. No complaints at all. Am also thankful that we were able to fill up a deep-freezer with frozen breastmilk so we'll still be reaping the benefits of bm for the next several months even though I've already stopped production.

UH-OH

Uh oh.

My pump, who has been my friend and constant companion since Dec 2009, is now making squeaking noises. I didn't really expect to still be breastfeeding at 20 months and yet, here we are, I'm still expressing milk for my little one.

Konting tiis pa, my friend. Hang in there.

Milk donation

Our deep freezer is full of frozen breastmilk again and we're making another donation. The recipient will be picking up around 600 oz of frozen milk tomorrow.

Coincidentally, my friend just forwarded me a link to a feature about selling breast milk online and a link to a website w/c facilitates the sale of breastmilk. I can't say that I'm not tempted because the milk is selling for up to $3.00 / ounce. And in some cases, where the milk is being sold at a bargain, it was selling for $0.60 / ounce - I did a quick calculation and this means that the 600 oz I'm donating tomorrow will potentially net me somewhere between $360 to $1800.

*blink*

Anyway, I've always been a firm believer in good karma and believe in sharing blessings but I just hope that tomorrow's pick up doesn't end up "nickel & dime"-ing me because I'd be seriously annoyed. I don't intend to profit from breastmilk ever (it sounds so ... uhm ... desperate ?) but I don't intend to be at the losing end either so I asked that the recipient to please reimburse me for the cost of the bags, they don't come cheap.

Extended Breastfeeding

My son turned a year old last month and I'm still (exclusively) breastfeeding him. Note that for our family, "breastfeeding" is really bottle-feeding him with expressed breastmilk.

Breastfeeding was just something I considered doing when I got pregnant. Before we conceived our son, it never really crossed my mind and frankly, I didn't care. When Swe-cha was born and we were working towards getting him fed exclusively on breastmilk, I was ecsastic when my milk started coming in.

Now, my son is almost 13 months old and I'm amazed and very thankful that we have reached this point and we still have milk coming in. I don't have any plans on stopping, I figure, we'll just do what we can for now and switch to toddler formula or fresh milk when my milk dries up.

Last week, my friend and I were talking about how, despite being tired and jetlagged, I pushed myself to get up and pump just so I could maintain my supply & give my son breastmilk so that the antibodies can help him get well faster (he had cough & colds, eye and ear infection). She said something which struck me, "hindi naman ganon kalaki yung benefits ng breastmilk pag ganito na yung age ng bata diba ? meron pa bang benefits ?"

Hindi nga ba ? So I did some googling and this was what I found:

From this site:

- The American Academy of Pediatrics advises breastfeeding for 6 to 12 months.

- The World Health Organization advises mothers to breastfeed exclusively for 6 months and recommend mothers to breastfeed for 2 years or longer.

- That breastfeeding for 6 months to a year benefits both the mom and the baby. Baby gets antibodies that help his immunity and factors that lower his risk of ear infection, respiratory infection and other diseases. Mom's risk of getting breast cancer, ovarian cancer and type 2 diabetes are lower than average.

- There aren't really a lot of studies done for breastfeeding beyond 1 year so just because there isn't any research documenting the benefits of doing so, it does not necessarily mean that there isn't any benefit at all.

From this site:

- extended breastfeeding can provide your child with vitamins and enzymes which he may not be getting from his diet (this is a big deal for me as my son is a picky eater)

- increased IQ is a benefit of breastfeeding at any age and the benefit only increases the longer you breastfeed

- it is thought to prevent diseases such as diabetes, heart disease and central nervous diseases like multiple sclerosis.

There are many other sites that echo the above statements... but all the articles I've read emphasize one thing - do not let the pros and cons sway you. Extended breastfeeding should be decided by the mom and the child.

Milk Stash - Nov 2010

Guess who has reached a milestone ?

We've officially breached the 100-bag mark on our frozen breastmilk stash. That's 54oz per bag. And at 100 ziploc bags, we have 5,400 oz milk frozen to date.

Of course, our freezer contains much much less than the 5400 oz as we have been constantly giving milk away as the freezer nears its full capacity.

Swe-Cha and his milky

Several bags of breast milk picked up by Dr R this afternoon *whew*, this gave us some wiggle room in our freezer - which, hopefully, should give us a few more days' storage. I bagged (into ZipLoc gallon bags) the loose milkbags that I've stashed all over our regular freezer because the deep freezer was already full and I've filled up two more gallon bags. Somehow, I'm thinking that we should've given Dr R more - hubby tried to foist two more gallon bags off her but she didn't bring enough coolers to transport the milk. I'm sure she regretted not having more cooler room too.

Anyhow, I'm tallying up my son's feeding record for yesterday and his results bother me a little. He seems to have lost his appetite these past few days and his milk intake is down to 20 oz / day. Considering that his daily average is usually in the 25oz level and that on good days (growth spurts, maybe ?) he's been known to take as much as 36 oz and he gets 20 oz on his bad days, these few days are on the low side.

It's so frustrating for me to have all this milk and yet, my son is seemingly on a diet. I'm not complaining about the abundance - because I do get to share this with friends and I love being able to do that - but I'd love it if my son would drink a bit more. Thankfully, even with his meager appetite (especially compared to a friend's baby who drinks an average of 40 oz / day when she was Swe-cha's age), he does not look malnourished and while he does not look obese or siksik, he does have the requesite infant chubbiness.

Anak, what does mommy have to do ?

Milk Stash - July 2010

It has been five months since I last posted a picture of my milk stash (click to see previous stash). Since then, I've moved the frozen breastmilk to a separate deep freezer - a 5 cu. ft freezer that we specifically bought to keep the milk.

The milk was filling up our freezer and we were running out of space for our food. Besides, I didn't really relish the idea of mixing the milk with the raw meat we keep in the freezer even though the milk is separately bagged in Ziploc gallon bags.

So how do I organize Swe-cha's frozen milk stash ?

1. We start off with 6 oz of milk for each bag. I normally use Lansinoh milk bags, they're the cheapest that I am able to find at $12.99 / 50 pcs from Babies R Us (but can use a 20% off coupon) or $10.99 at Walmart. Recently, I came across some Gerber Seal N Go bags that were on clearance at a local supermarket and needless to say, I cleaned out their shelves. Unfortunately, there were only 5 boxes left.

2. Each 6 oz Lansinoh or Gerber bag then goes into the regular freezer and is laid down flat to freezer. These bags get labeled with the date and the time when the milk was expressed.

3. When frozen, the milk bag then goes to a Ziploc gallon freezer bag, each gallon bag has 9 milk bags (with 6 oz milk each). Each freezer bag is then numbered. It's easier to keep track of numbered bags, compared to dated ones.

4. I keep a small notebook / memo pad with a list of the numbered bags and the dates of milk that each bag contains. I also have a column where I indicate where each bag went.

So far, I have been fortunate enough to have ample milk supply for my son to have fresh milk every day. I freeze the excess milk that I am able to pump and freeze it for the future. When my deep freezer gets full, I give the milk away and I mark these on my notebook - who got the milk and when they got it.

So far, I'm up to freezer bag #66, the first 24 of which have already been given away. As you can see, the freezer is filled up again, time to call for milk pickup :)

Milk Stats

According to my logs, the milk factory that is me has produced over 6,500 oz of milk in the past 6 months.

More than half of that - 3,300 oz - has been frozen and is stored in my freezer or has been donated. The rest have either been fed to Swe-cha or dumped (i.e. when I indulge myself and succumb to a cup of coffee).

If an average can of ready-to-mix formula say, a 23.2 oz Similac container, makes an average of 168 oz of milk. That would make my personal milk production equivalent to 39 cans.

With each Similac can of formula costing $22.49 at Babies R Us, that would mean that the milk I've pumped is now valued at $877. This means that my Medela PIS and milk bag costs are sulit na.

I've given away 1,200 oz of milk, roughly equivalent to $160 savings in formula costs. And if computed at the going rate of $3 for breastmilk (you can buy breastmilk that has been pasteurized and packaged for commercial sale), this is a $3,600 value!

No wonder, I have lost a lot of weight even though I've been eating ravenously these past months. Yay!

Right now, I'm patting my 'girls' for a job well-done. Keep up the good work :)