Breastfeeding Your Adopted Baby
Breastfeeding your adopted baby is a real possibility, if you use time-honored induced lactation techniques to stimulate your breasts and prepare them to make breastmilk. The staff at our Texas adoption agency understands that breastfeeding isn’t what everyone chooses, but we are providing this important information for those who decide to give it a try.
Induced lactation is the first step in your breastfeeding journey
You can begin inducing lactation before your baby is born by stimulating the breast tissue to make breastmilk. Creating a milk supply can take anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, depending on the person. Here are some steps you can take to get started.
- Stimulate your breasts manually, or use a breast pump before the baby arrives. You should use stimulation about eight to 10 times per day, mimicking the number of times that a new baby nurses.
- One induced lactation resource you can try is the Newman-Goldfarb protocols for Induced Lactation®: The Guide for Maximizing Milk Supply.
- Discuss hormone therapy with your physician. Medication and/or herbal supplements, combined with stimulation, work well for some people.
Nursing supplementers help mothers enjoy the closeness of nursing
If you cannot produce enough breastmilk or do not have time to stimulate the breasts, you can enjoy the closeness of breastfeeding your adopted baby with nursing supplementers. These devices have a bag that you attach to your breast. Tubes going from the bag to the area just past your nipples allow your baby to suck formula, your breast milk or breast milk from another mother from your breast. Sometimes, when your baby sucks on your breast, that movement helps stimulate your breasts to produce breast milk as well.
If you don’t produce enough milk to feed your baby, you can combine some nursing using your own breastmilk with formula or shared milk from another mother using the nursing supplementer. Nursing mothers donate their milk for other mothers and babies to use. Contact your local La Leche organization for information about shared breastmilk networks.
Our Texas adoption agency offers advice for bonding with your new baby
There are many ways to bond with your newborn, whether you are breastfeeding your adopted baby or not. You can enjoy skin-to-skin contact while feeding, or just hold your baby close as your little one enjoys a bottle. The staff at our Texas adoption agency is always here to offer support and advice before and after you bring your precious new baby home. Contact us for more information.