Most breastfeeding parents need to remove milk from their breasts at one point or another. The most effective way to remove milk from your breasts is when your baby properly breastfeeds. Your baby combines suction, negative pressure and rhythmic gum compressions to your areola. That is why we call it breastfeeding not nipple feeding.
When you hand express breast milk if you take time to do a gentle breast massage it can help you relax and enable you to remove more milk. Take time to learn and listen to your body. If you combine massage and compressions with hand expression you can increase the amount of milk you are able to remove from your breasts.
Knowing how to hand express helps you be self-reliant. You never know when you may need to remove milk and it is a method you can use anytime and anywhere, without needing a pump or electricity to remove your milk. It doesn’t cost you a thing, it is quiet and you are in charge of the pressure and positioning used to remove your milk.
As a new parent, hand expressing breast milk helps you to setup your milk supply. There was a study done that shows breastfeeding parents who utilize hand expression and an electric breast milk pump in the first three days, milk output was increased by 48% (Morton et al., 2009).
In the United States, the Affordable Care Act of 2010 requires most health insurance plans to cover the cost of a breast pump as part of preventative health services (U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 2014). Make sure to ask your insurance about this option so you can get a high quality breast pump. It is important you have a properly fitting flange so you do not cause injury and inhibit your breast milk removal. Just because your pump comes with a standard flange does not mean it is the one best suited for you. You can get smaller or larger flanges depending on the size of your nipple. My Lactation Destination Course has a tutorial class specifically dedicated to teaching you how to measure for a properly fitting flange.