Exclusively Pumping Breast Milk: A Guide to Providing Expressed Breast Milk for Your Baby was written by me, Stephanie Casemore. Since writing the book, I have also set up this website to help share information with other women who are exclusively pumping or women who may be considering it as an option but are unsure of how to go about it or where to get information. I am married and live in Ontario, Canada with my husband, David, and son, Graeme who is now three years old. We are also expecting a new baby in June of 2006. I exclusively pumped for my son for just over one year and began pumping when he was born nine weeks premature. My formal education is a Bachelor of Arts in International Development and English and a Bachelor of Education in Secondary Education; however, I truly believe that it is our life experiences that teach us the most. Prior to being a mom and writing this book, I taught English for five years at the junior high and high school level. Currently I am a stay-at-home-mom and am working to spread the word that exclusively pumping is possible and to help provide sound advice on how to do it.

The Story Behind Why I Exclusively Pumped

Throughout my pregnancy I planned on breastfeeding. I knew that I wanted to give my baby the best I possibly could, and for me that meant providing breast milk for as long as possible. Around the beginning of my third trimester, I began to read books on the subject of breastfeeding wanting to be sure I was prepared and knowledgeable. But having the time to read the volumes of information I collected was not to be.

Thirty weeks into my pregnancy, I developed severe and sudden preeclampsia and was immediately admitted into the antenatal ward of the hospital. Within four days of being admitted, I was induced and my tiny three pound two ounce baby boy was born. Thankfully, he wasn’t born with any serious complications other than his low birth weight, and, with the intention of giving him the best I could, I set out pumping since he was too small to nurse.

Initially, pumping was only intended to initiate my milk supply and ensure that I could breastfeed once my son was ready. Three weeks after his birth, I began short attempts to breastfeed him, and surprisingly, he seemed eager and ready. However, even after joining him in the hospital around the clock for almost two weeks, he was not strong enough to take full feeds by breast and continued to be fed by a nasogastric (NG) tube which is a tube fed through the nose directly into the stomach.

By the time he was thirty-seven weeks gestational age, we decided to introduce a bottle in order to get him home. Hospital policy stated that a baby could not leave the Infant Intensive Care Unit (IICU) until he or she was able to take all feeds by mouth for a 48 hour period. The importance of bringing our baby home before he fell ill in the hospital from the many viruses and bacteria lurking there was mentioned to me a number of times by different nurses. And so three weeks before his due date, we introduced the bottle and brought our tiny baby home.

Once home, life became an endless cycle of breastfeeding, bottle feeding to ensure he was receiving enough, and then pumping. On a good night, I was able to get four hours of sleep, although rarely four consecutive hours. Having been told to wake my baby every three hours to eat, I was quickly running on empty. Our breastfeeding efforts quickly deteriorated into extremely stressful experiences. My son would wail anytime I attempted to bring him to breast. He would scream and thrash and refuse to latch on. Needing to feed him, I resorted to bottle feeding in order to supplement our “failed” breastfeeding attempts. Throughout this, I continued to pump.

Eventually, in an effort of self-preservation, I decided that I would pump exclusively and feed by bottle. Once this decision was made, the stress level in the house dropped dramatically. Everyone, including my dog, seemed a little less on edge. But now I was faced with a future tied to a breast pump and no where to go for support or information about exclusively pumping.

The Internet became my best resource, and I located a number of discussion boards focusing on women who were pumping for their babies. Suddenly I was no longer alone, and I realized it was possible to pump long-term. These women became my source of expertise since these were the women doing it and proving it could be successful. Since at that time there were no available resources dedicated to exclusively pumping, women had to figure it out for themselves. Not only did the internet provide much needed support and camaraderie, it also provided a valuable forum for women who were exclusively pumping to share their experience and techniques.

I continued to work with my son to develop a latch that did not rely on the use of the nipple shield that we had begun to use while still in the hospital. A couple weeks after his due date we had success, put away the shield, and continued our efforts. Although I did not transition over to breastfeeding exclusively, my son did continue to breastfeed occasionally, often as a comfort measure and sometimes just because he was hungry. Complications with nipple soreness on my part, severe reflux on my son’s part that was not diagnosed for a number of months, and his preference for the bottle nipple prevented a transition to breastfeeding. And so I pumped, happy to do it for the health of my son. I am grateful, however, that I was able to experience some aspect of breastfeeding although not the breastfeeding relationship I had expected. I exclusively pumped for just over one year and weaned by choice. After I weaned, I had enough frozen milk to feed my son expressed breast milk for another couple months.

Exclusively pumping is an option! However, many women are not aware of it or are sometimes told that it is rarely possible and that they may not maintain a supply with a pump. While it is true that not every woman will see success, many women will, and obtaining good advice about exclusively pumping is the best way to achieve this success.

I am not a medical professional. I have no background in lactation or breastfeeding support. But I did exclusively pump for one year and had to research and educate myself about lactation and pumping in order to pump long-term. It is my intention to provide you with the valuable information I have learned in order to help you make an informed decision about pumping. I also hope to enable you to both establish your supply and maintain your supply for, hopefully, as long as you would like to provide breast milk for your baby.

The information in my book is also based on the generosity of over 50 women who took the time to share with me the method by which they started to pump and how they maintained their supply. It is their experience which shows this is an option which is available to many.

It is difficult to argue that breast milk is not the best nutrition possible for our babies. When breastfeeding just doesn’t work out, you can not breastfeed, or do not want to breastfeed but still recognize the value of breast milk, there is another option instead of formula. Women need to know this. You need to know this. While it is sometimes a more difficult road to travel, it is one that will be worth the effort when you look into the eyes of your breast milk-fed baby.