Lactation Services

We can help in these ways:

• Answer your questions and assist with breastfeeding/chestfeeding
• Provide tips and resources to increase your milk supply
• Address common lactation problems

If your infant is too sick to eat, and your goal is to produce milk, we will help you meet your goals using a pump.

Our team will explain how a pump works and help you use it to provide milk for your baby.

You will have a Medela Symphony hospital-grade pump in your child’s room to use while you are in the hospital. Double pumping with a hospital-grade pump 8 times every 24 hours is the most efficient way to make a full milk supply, especially if your baby is not breastfeeding/chestfeeding at all. You can use your own pump if you prefer.

We want to make sure your pumping equipment is the right size for you.

Comfort is important while pumping; we provide lanolin (a waxy cream), milk pads and comfort gel pads.

We will provide you with cleaning supplies and instruction to minimize cross-contamination.

We will also offer you a log to record how often you pump and how m

We will give you barcoded labels for your milk and teach you how to store your milk safely. If you have more milk than you can use before it will expire, we will store it in our milk lab.

Before feeding your baby, your baby’s nurse will scan the barcode and scan an ankle tag that your baby wears to ensure that your baby receives only your milk.

If your baby is premature or is not gaining weight or taking enough milk to grow, the milk lab technicians will fortify your milk with formula or additives to add extra nutrition.

Our Lactation Meal Program provides meals to lactating parents of babies up to 6 months old if:

• Your baby is staying at Seattle Children’s Hospital.
• You are providing milk or pumping for your baby at least 4 times each day.

• For the smallest and most critically ill babies in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (ICU) or Cardiac ICU, donor human milk may be available if your supply does not meet all your baby’s needs.
• If your baby is a patient at Seattle Children’s and you have extra milk that you want to donate, we connect you with Northwest Mothers Milk Bank to donate surplus milk.

We work closely with the occupational therapists (OTs) and physical therapists (PTs) on Seattle Children’s Infant Feeding team. Babies who are too sick to breastfeed/chestfeed at birth may need more time to learn to latch, suck and feed well. Our OTs and PTs will assess your baby’s oral feeding abilities. We will work together to help your baby learn how to feed by mouth.