Supplemental Nursing System

by Donna Norris, IBCLC, RN

Hello, my name is Donna Norris and I am a lactation consultant and a mother/ baby R.N. A few years into my lactation practice I received a call from a young woman who I will call Carrie, who wanted desperately to breastfeed but had never been pregnant. She had undergone a hysterectomy for uterine cancer in her twenties, and was unable to conceive a child. Her sister in California had agreed to undergo invitro fertilization with sperm from Carrie's husband, and carry a child to term and then give up the infant to Carrie and her husband for adoption to raise as their own. Carie sought out my help to bring in a milk supply so that she might be able to at least partially breastfeed.

The baby was due in just a few weeks, so we had very little time to plan. I instructed Carrie on use of the SNS (Supplemental Nursing System), and Carrie planned to use it in the delivery room when the baby was first born. All went as planned and soon Carrie was home with her new baby. I assisted her with fine tuning the use of the SNS, all the while warning her that she may in fact never produce any breastmilk for this baby, and that her joy needed to be derived solely from the act of being able to put her baby to her breast to feed. I explained that the suckling action was the trigger for the hormonal secretion to occur form Carrie's brain that could eventually trigger milk production, but given all that she had endured it was a long shot.

Carrie used the SNS faithfully for 6 weeks for all of her baby's feedings, including the night feedings. She was dedicated and focused and committed to feeding her baby at the breast, while holding hope that breast milk might be produced. After 6 weeks she came in to see me, and we marveled together at her perseverance, noting that the SNS was often cumbersome to set up and use each time. I examined her breasts at this point, and when I attempted to hand express from her breast white milk squirted across the room!!!! We both jumped up and down! Carrie had produced breast milk! She had coaxed her body into doing what she knew it could do, despite living with the knowledge that her body could never produce children. She was ecstatic. And though she never went on to breast feed her baby, she had accomplished what she had set out to do, and went on to enjoy all the benefits and joys of motherhood.

Donna Norris IBCLC RN

lacrn@comcast.net