Before you start on this venture, I would strongly encourage you to visit your OB/GYN or a qualified breast-care medical facility to bring your mammography history up to date, and for a good CBE (Clinical Breast Examination) to be sure that you are aware of what may be occurring in your breasts at this time. This is important, because once you start to induce lactation, your breasts will become more dense, larger in size, and will start getting "strange bumps" that you are not used to finding., but it is also possible that by paying closer attention through your increased physical contact, you have noticed problems that were there before you started inducing.

When you start paying closer attention to your breasts (because of this induction process), you may notice some changes in your breasts. Any changes in your breasts that cannot be attributed to known causes should be checked by your OB/GYN or breast-health provider, to be sure something is not happening that needs to be taken care of. If you have already started to induce lactation, those changes are likely caused by the oncoming lactating duties (if you have started to develop the acini (milk-producing) tissues or producing milk). If your medical practitioner is not aware of your lactation intent, the reader of your mammograms may see cause for alarm. Your age may rule out the likelihood of your being pregnant, so breast changes would suggest hormonal difficulties or breast changes such as calcification or cancer or  a tumor on the pituitary gland, and further tests will be recommended. This can be avoided if you make sure that the doctor that schedules your mammograms is aware that you are attempting to lactate. Most women find this difficult to discuss with their doctor, but it would avoid a lot of difficulties if you get that settled at the beginning of your breast examinations. Some doctors are actually quite supportive of couples having established ANRs. If they are not, remember that your doctor works for you, is paid by you, and can be "fired" by you, and you can move on to a doctor that is more favorable of allowing you to choose your own lifestyle.

Some ANR couples have not achieved lactation, but have been satisfied with the closeness and bonding that they have established during the attempt, and are quite pleased to merely have the time together and the physical contact, even without the anticipated milk. That is certainly nothing to overlook. This article is to help couples to achieve milk production, but remember that there is much beauty in the travel, even if you never get to your intended destination.

What I suggest to anyone that approaches me with the desire to establish lactation (without the aid of having delivered a child recently), no matter what may be their reasons for doing so, is the following:

POINT ONE:
Tell your body what you want. Reach up and squeeze your breast as if to squeeze something out, and you have already started the process. By requesting your milk from your breasts, your body will likely do its part and provide that milk. But not yet. This requires you to express milk from your breasts on a closely regulated "schedule" (our bodies really do like schedules). Your brain, body and breasts have to "get the message" that milk is needed, and that can only happen if every 3-4 hours over the 24-hour day, all seven days of each week, each of your breasts is being completely "emptied". If you are not producing breast milk yet, express your breasts AS IF YOU ARE PRODUCING MILK for 10 - 15 minutes (each breast), whether anything comes out of them or not. If you express for less than 10 - 15 minutes on each breast or you miss one of those sessions your body begins to reverse the process and reverts back toward the non-lactating condition, and that will require several more sessions just to return to the point you had achieved before you skipped a session. Do Not Miss A Session! Your breasts will stop producing milk if you wean your child, and if you take less milk for one session, or skip a session or two, your brain, body and breasts take that to mean that you are weaning a child, so your breasts reduce their milk production and shut down.　

POINT TWO:
Choose the method by which you will express your milk. You may use more then one method, of course, but try to be as consistent as you can until you reach full milk production.

The BEST choice is using a mouth, and using it properly. The tongue squeezes your breast up against the roof of the mouth. The tongue presses on your breast at a point an inch or more behind your nipple, not ON your nipple. The tongue should do a "rolling" action to coax your milk to move toward your nipple. Think of your tongue trying to empty a toothpaste tube. Minimum suction is needed because the recipient does not suck milk from your breasts, he/she merely picks up any milk that has been pressed out of your nipples. When "latching on" to your breast, your recipient should literally attempt to reach their uvula (that little hangly-down thingy in the back of their throat) with your nipple. I said ATTEMPT… they cannot actually reach it unless your breast is pendulous and very thin (and some are). Stay OFF the nipple; that has no milk in it. Milk just passes through it.

The THIRD best choice is to use a breast pump. The breast pump does not usually do as efficient a job of emptying your breasts, nor does it provide the deep stroking that is beneficial in starting lactation. Manual expression or expression by mouth will usually do a better job of providing that deeper manipulation of your breast tissues. The pump works quite well AFTER you are lactating fully, to empty your breasts when your partner is not there to help you.

If you do choose to induce with a breast pump, remember that completely empty breasts send signals that tell your body and brain that you need milk (or MORE milk) in future sessions. Do Not Stop Pumping when your milk stops coming out. Continue to pump for the full 10-15 minutes to encourage more milk production. Keep the suction rather low, because the suction does nothing but cause pain. If you find the skin on your nipples or areolae turning white and staying white for a period of time after you have removed the pump, you are probably using too small of a cup on the pump or you are using too much vacuum. Suction merely picks up milk after it is produced from your nipple, so if milk is not coming out of your nipple, do not increase suction. After you are producing milk, mouth or manual (hand) expression should also be used after you use the pump, to completely empty your breasts. Leaving milk in your breasts can cause your ducts to become blocked, and that can lead to mastitis, which is difficult to deal with. It will also signal to your brain and breasts that you do not need as much milk, and you will start to produce less milk.

NOTE #1: If you are doing manual expression, the use of a pump does provide some extra stimulation of the nerves that surround your nipple, and five minutes of pumping AFTER you complete the full ten – fifteen minutes of manual expression of each breast, could be beneficial to you. A good breast pump provides a rapid-pulsing stimulation of your areolar nerves which is good to help stimulate lactation.

NOTE #2: Be sure and take a note from breastfeeding mothers: Do not allow your partner to come off your nipple until the suction is removed. That can cause some temporary damage and pain to your nipple. If you are using a pump, be sure to remove the vacuum before you bring the cup off your breast. A finger slipped under the cup flange will break the vacuum.

Also, remember to hydrate yourself. You should drink at LEAST what you SHOULD be drinking each day normally. Too many of us do not drink what we should. It is suggested that you can determine the amount of water that you should drink daily by using the following formula:

(Your weight (in pounds) divided by two equals the number of OUNCES of
water you need). If you weigh 120 pounds, then it would be:

120 lbs / 2 = 60 oz of water per day

I don't personally reach that goal either. :-)

Be aware that you CAN over-hydrate, and lactating does not really require much more water then you normally require. Just getting up to the normal amount of water should help you lactate.

CONCLUSION:

If, after a couple of months of doing what this article says, you are still not successful in achieving lactation, look this article over again and see if there is any part that you may be missing, or perhaps if there may be something that you can do longer… or better… or with more concentration. The more closely you can follow these steps, the easier it should be for you to reach lactation.

Please do not hesitate to ask other questions, or ask about something that you may not understand clearly in this article. If reading this has brought other questions to mind, just ask.