I want to wean my baby,doctor told me to bind my breasts.

QUESTION: I would like to stop breastfeeding and an M.D. gave me me the advice to bind my breasts. I tried this for a a night and it was too painful. What is a nice weaning schedule I can follow? Now I pump every 5 hours and the right breast is getting bigger and producing more milk! Help...

Dear Sheila,

You have already seen how persistent Mother Nature can be with the milk supply. Most women do not realize that they will most likely be able to express milk for many weeks following weaning--sometimes even for many months. I do not mean to imply that you will be walking around full of milk and leaking--just that there will be some milk secreted for quite some time.

The advice about binding your breasts is pretty routine for doctors to give out--however, it's very outdated, no longer recommended, and can actually be hazardous to your health! First of all, as you found out, it's very painful! Second, I personally know of two women who ended up in surgery for a breast abscess because of binding, so you see it can actually be dangerous!

What you are doing (pumping) is ideal. However, you should not be on any kind of schedule and you should not be attempting to "empty" the breasts. Instead, whenever your breasts begin to feel full and tight, you need to get some of the milk out. You should express just enough to relieve the tight feeling and no more. If you are emptying the breast, it sends a message to the brain to make more milk. If you express just a little, the opposite message gets sent--slow down on milk supply. You will find that you are pumping less and less as the days go by. Sheila, I would be remiss in my duties as a Lactation Consultant if I did not inform you of the fact that putting your baby on artificial baby milk poses hazards to your baby. Most doctors will not talk about these risks because they do not want to make women feel "guilty." Yet, if you were to tell that same doctor that you planned to put your baby in a car without a car seat, he/she would have no problem making you feel "guilty." The same is true of smoking. Making you feel "guilty" is certainly not my goal--helping you make an educated decision as to your child's feeding, is. I have heard women say that they felt very angry (myself included) that no one every told them there were hazards associated with formula feeding.

Dr. Jack Newman is a pediatrician in Canada who is also a breastfeeding expert. He has researched this topic extensively and has quite a detailed list of research articles. You can read his list by clicking on http://www.erols.com/cindyrn/25.htm

.I realize that most adults today were raised on infant formula, and I acknowledge that most babies will have adequate growth with these formulas; however there is a big difference between adequate and optimum. I hope you have not made this decision lightly, and I hope even more that you have not made it because you felt forced into it. Formula is NOT just as good as breastmilk or even almost as good. It is a far distant second. All the research is out there to support this. We only have to read it. I wish you and your family well. If I can be of further help, please let me know.

Cher Sealy RN, BSN, IBCLC, LLLL

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