With this change in routine, they may drop below their “magic number,” which causes a dip in milk production. Many of the employed breastfeeding mothers I help by phone are diligent about maintaining their number of milk expressions at work, but often, as the months pass, they breastfeed less and less at home.
#MAGIC NUMBER PLUS#
But when a mother’s total number of breast drainings (breastfeedings plus milk expressions) dips below her “magic number,” her milk production slows.ĭaily totals. Due to differences in breast storage capacity, some mothers’ “magic number” may be as few as 4-5 or as many as 9-10. The “magic number.” This refers to the number of times each day a mother’s breasts need to be well drained of milk to keep her milk production stable. In other words, “drained breasts make milk faster” and “full breasts make milk slower.” The amount of milk needed to slow milk production will be much greater in a woman with a large breast storage capacity, so she can remove her milk fewer times a day without her milk production decreasing When her breasts become full, this sends her body the signal to make milk slower. Breast storage capacity affects how many times every 24 hours a woman’s breasts need to be drained well of milk-either by breastfeeding or expression-to maintain her milk production. This is the amount of milk in a woman’s breasts when they are at their fullest each day and this amount can vary greatly among mothers. I shared some of these with this mother, and my explanation set her mind at ease.īreast storage capacity. To meet her breastfeeding goal of one year, I told her, “all she had to do was maintain her milk production.” But maintaining milk production is not always easy for employed mothers, especially when they don’t know the basic dynamics affecting how much milk they make. In a recent blog post, I told a military mother who had returned to work at six weeks postpartum that she was making as much milk as her thriving baby would ever need.