Milk ejection patterns: an intra- individual comparison of breastfeeding and pumping

BMC Pregnancy and Childbirth

Donna T Geddes²  Peter E Hartmann²  Mark D Cregan¹  Leon R Mitoulas¹  Ching Tat Lai²  Jacqueline C Kent²  Hazel Gardner² 

[1] Medela AG, Lättichstrasse 4b, Baar, 6341, Switzerland;School of Chemistry and Biochemistry, M310, The University of Western Australia, 35 Stirling Highway, Crawley 6009, Western Australia

关键词: Let down;    Programming;    Breast physiology;    Milk expression;    Breastfeeding;    Milk ejection;    Human lactation;   

Others  :  1221552
DOI  :  10.1186/s12884-015-0583-3

 received in 2015-04-29, accepted in 2015-06-30,  发布年份 2015

【 摘 要 】

Background

Milk ejection is a transient episode critical to milk removal and women typically have multiple milk ejections during breastfeeding and pumping. Recently it was found that milk ejection characteristics such as number of milk ejections and periodicity were consistent throughout 12 months of lactation in women who expressed their milk with an electric breast pump. It is not known whether the stimulation of an infant at the breast influences milk ejection patterns or whether this is a programmed event. The aim of this study was to compare milk ejection patterns during breastfeeding and expressing milk with an electric pump within mothers.

Methods

Twelve lactating mothers with normal milk production (502–1356 mL) had milk ejection recorded by measuring the diameter of a major milk duct with ultrasound imaging throughout an entire breastfeed and a 15-min pumping session. Scans were analysed for timing, duration of duct dilation and maximum duct diameter.

Results

The initial milk ejection defined as the first increase in duct diameter was observed earlier during breastfeeding than during two phase pumping sessions but was not statistically significant (p = .057). There were no significant differences between the duration of the first or second milk ejection for mothers when breastfeeding or pumping at their maximum comfortable vacuum (p = .18; p = .99). The times taken to reach the peak duct diameter, or the first half of the milk ejection were also not found to be significantly different between breastfeeding and pumping.

Conclusion

This study suggests that milk ejection patterns remain consistent within individual mothers regardless of whether the mother is breastfeeding or expressing milk indicating a likelihood of the process either being programmed or innate to the individual.

【 授权许可】

   
2015 Gardner et al.

【 图 表 】

Fig. 1.

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